Long and Complicated
by Viskey HeroMouse
Summary: In Jo's mind there were two sentences defining Henry Morgan: It's complicated, and It's a long story... And a long story she shall hear ... and you shall read (in excerpts, anyway) ... And unexpectedly there is also a murder to solve. (Now with - hopefully all - typos and mistakes removed.)
1. Birthcertificates & Church Registers

_Since the PTB have left us on a cliffie - admittedly a minor one, it could have been so much worse - I jump in with the crowd and continue, where the series has left us._

 _Hope I can make it worth your while. ;)_

* * *

"It's a long story", Henry said, his face one of defeat, but, as it seemed, not an entirely unwelcome one.

"Well, I've got time," she returned and butted her way into the antique shop.

Abe stood and smiled, very pleased with himself over something, while Henry, now behind her, closed the door and after a moment locked it.

"Well?" Jo prompted.

"It's complicated," Henry ventured.

Jo almost laughed. Henry's favourite phrase. "Never mind," she said. "I'm smart, I'm sure I can keep up."

"That's not what I was implying," Henry quickly reassured. "It doesn't, however, change the fact that I simply don't know how to start."

"Why don't you start with: 'In the year of our Lord 1779, in Her Majesty's city of London'," Abe suggested gleefully.

Henry answered with a accusing stare, before he corrected: "Ignoring for the moment that _that_ would be a ridiculous start, it would be _His_ Majesty's city. In 1779 England was ruled by King George III."

Abe rolled his eyes at that. He was obviously just as familiar with Henry's lecturing as Jo was, probably even more so. "All that notwithstanding," he went on, "I think I make an excellent point."

"Look, why don't you just start at the beginning?" Jo suggested conciliatorily, hoping to prevent the situation from escalating into a fully-fledged verbal sparring.

Henry looked between her and Abe for a moment, before he sighed. "Fine, you win."

Jo wondered who he referred to, her or Abe, but since they both seemed to want the same thing anyway, it hardly mattered.

Ten minutes later they were in the upstairs apartment, seated around the coffee-table, on which sat a tray with teapot and cups, as well as a bottle of Scotch and glasses. Jo had allowed Henry to putter about, had for the most part managed to ignore the nonsensical bickering flying back and forth between Henry and Abe. But now her patience ran out. "The beginning," she demanded. "Now."

Henry pushed it by pouring himself a cup of tea first. "The beginning, _my_ beginning... my birth..."

Jo arched an eyebrow but otherwise kept all her reactions to herself. If he felt he needed to start that early in his life ... so be it, at least he'd finally talk.

"... and, please, bear in mind, that there were no certificates to document a child's birth before 1837 - in England that is, and Wales. Other countries, such as the United States of America..."

"Henry!" She cut him off. Here she'd thought he would talk, but instead she got yet another lesson in 'History of Inconsequential Things'.

"Right. I am sorry, Jo. I tend to get lost in details as you may have noticed."

"Not until you mentioned it just now," she said, trying to keep the sarcasm to a minimum.

"Anyway, what I was trying to say: I'd show you proof of my date of birth, but in 1779 those were still documented in church registers, and church registers only. And the register in question is still, I presume, at the church in question." He took a long drink from his cup, probably even drained it in one go.

Jo stared at him for a few seconds, expectantly, before she looked over at Abe. He looked calm and more serious than she liked. "What... Henry?" Her voice had a bit of a squeaky quality to it, which she immediately hated with great passion.

"It's true," Abe supplied. "Well, I assume that it is. I can only vouch for anything after - oh - say 1950. That's where my memory sets in reliably."

Jo leaned back in her seat, pensively. This had to be an elaborate practical joke or something. Only it didn't feel like one.

"Perhaps you want that sip of Scotch now, that you refused earlier?" Henry asked.

Jo declined again. "I want the truth."

Henry swallowed self-consciously. "This is it."

"But ... come on ... 1779, that would make you ... 236 years old."

"235 ... and a half. I was born in September."

"Of course you were." She shook her head in defeat.

* * *

TBC


	2. Austen, Mozart & Hemingway

_**Sidenote** : Facts given in this story are actual facts (according to the internet, anyway, and in case anyone wondered: birthcertificates became a standard in the US around 1900)_

 _Unfortunately I didn't find out when exactly Henry Austen went bankrupt, so I had to improvise around that bit. (Rewrote that part of the chapter, after Sakari Kateri Azrael kindly gave me the information I needed: Henry Austen went bankrupt in 1816... It's a relatively minor change in the story, but it adds to the historical accuracy I strive to achieve.)_

 _Also: THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS, FAVS and FOLLOWS! :)_

* * *

"... so, despite the most unbelievable circumstances of my being found in Auschwitz and subsequently being adopted by Henry, turns out we're actually related!" Abe beamed, and Henry beamed right along with him.

Somehow, over the course of the last four hours, three cups of tea and two glasses of Scotch (so far), Jo had come to accept, that even if not everything Henry told her was true, at least some of it had to be. After all, Henry had photographic proof. As far back as 1842, or so he claimed. Regardless, the photo showed Henry and was undeniably really, _really_ old. Although, of course, true to his nerdy, nit-picky self, Henry steadfastly maintained that it was a daguerrotype, _not_ a photograph.

"Henry, it's a picture of you, taken by a camera. It's a photograph."

He gave her one of his prized exasperated stares. "It's on a silver plate, it's a daguerrotype. Photographs are made on film or paper, which strictly speaking have film applied to it. They are also much less delicate and prone to destruction than a daguerrotype."

"Whatever." Jo eyed the Scotch for a moment, before she thought "screw it" and poured herself a generous third glass. Almost without conscious thought Henry added a splash of water to it. He could be such a snob.

"Why do you think, this is behind a glass sheet?" Henry continued. "That's not a modern addition, I'll have you know. That's how they came out of the shop. Because even the lightest touch could ruin the surface, which is to say, the picture."

She really should have known better.

"Alright, alright," Abe butted in, "I think she's got it."

"Boy, do I ever," Jo muttered into her glass, then cleared her throat. "So, you two are actually related, huh?"

"Yes. My uncle Dennis..."

"... was my ... a number of greats-grandfather."

"That's..." She couldn't find a fitting word.

"It's fantastic, is what it is!"

Henry winced slightly. "I wish I had instilled in you a better sense for language. I never taught you to mangle your sentences like that."

"Yeah? Well, for your information, Pops, not all of us want to talk like fresh out of a Jane Austen novel."

"More's the pity. She had a wonderful grasp of language." He got that slightly spaced out look, he sometimes got, and smiled to himself.

"Don't tell me you knew her," Abe asked reproachfully. "Don't tell me, there are still things in your life you haven't told me about!"

Henry was shaken from his reverie. "Would you have cared about me telling you about Jane Austen? I think not. But yes. Yes, I did meet her, if only by association through her older brother, whose name happened to be also Henry." He smiled happily for a moment. "I thought her to be quite a fascinating woman, sprightly, smart, humorous. Prettier than the surviving portraits give her credit."

"You had a crush on her!" Jo exclaimed gloatingly.

Henry pulled his eyebrows together disapprovingly. "I most certainly did not. I was merely trying to say that she was quite the impressive woman. One, who didn't care much for me, as a matter of fact. She found me arrogant and... obnoxious. Even told me so herself on one occasion." He frowned. "Anyway, I suspect she didn't like me mainly because I wasn't all that fond of her favourite brother. Who was a banker at the time, and a business-associate of my father's. Although why my father kept dealing with him, I can't fathom. My father may not have been a commercial genius, but he was a decent enough businessman. Mr Austen on the other hand... He went bankrupt in... I think it was 1816, could have been a year sooner. I wasn't really around at the time to keep an eye on such mundane things." His voice trailed off, and he gazed off into a far away distance.

A distance of time, as Jo now learned to understand.

"Took my father's business down with him, most of it, anyway."

"Oh, don't make it sound so gloomy," Abe admonished gently. "It's not like you ended up a beggar."

"No. You're right. There was enough left to allow for a comfortable life. And it's not as if my father's wealth hadn't received the odd dent even before that. Particularly one bad investment - brokered by Henry Austen, as it happens." He suddenly cocked his head to the side. "As a matter of fact, one might argue, that my father's business started to go downhill from there. So if it hadn't been for Mr Austen, my father wouldn't have turned to slave trading, I wouldn't have been on his ship, I wouldn't have been shot by the captain... Maybe I wouldn't have ended up... incapable of dying. - Curious, I never thought of it like that before."

"So you've met Jane Austen, the _actual_ Jane Austen?" Jo asked after a beat in which Henry's thoughts about this chain of events sank in.

"Apparently he's got a talent for meeting famous people," Abe said. "Kipling stole his girl, once."

"Rudyard...?"

"He didn't," Henry was quick to correct, and went on to add: "I've met Kipling only once, at a ball, and he was a bit of a bore, to be perfectly honest. Brillilant in writing, perhaps, but not so much in person; a bit full of himself. Then again, the ball was in his honour, so maybe he was entitled."

"Who am I thinking of, then?" Abe didn't seem the least impressed by his father having once met Rudyard Kipling, and was now pretty much slandering the man's character. But maybe that's the kind of thick skin you developed growing up with a father who never aged.

"You were thinking of Ernest," Henry answered Abe's question. "Hemingway," he added for Jo's benefit.

"I give up. That's it. You're killing me." Jo dropped back in her seat and took a generous sip.

"No, I just... You meet one artist, and if they decide they like you, they drag you along, and you meet all the rest. It's pretty much unavoidable, really. Furthermore, it was only a brief period in my life, in the 1920s and 30s, before I had to... disappear, if I wanted to maintain my... secret."

Damn, it was a while since she'd read Jane Austen, but he _did_ sound like he'd just dropped out of one of her books. This convoluted, overly complicated, old-fashioned... And that's when it finally hit her, really hit her. Whe she did not only think she understood and believe, but actually did. Henry wasn't old-fashioned. He was just simply old.

Jane and him, they had been contemporaries. For Henry, this was the language of his youth, his actual mother tongue. He was _old_.

"What is it, Jo?" Henry inquired with concern.

"I think you better leave Mozart for another day, Henry." Abe seemed only slightly worried about her mental state.

Jo stared at Henry wide-eyed. "My god, you're really _old_ , aren't you? Like really..." She waved her hand ove to where the box with the daguerrotype was sitting on a side-table. "This... You were already an old man, when this picture was taken. You were... You knew Mozart?"

Henry stood up, rounded the table and sat down on the couch next to her. "Yes, I'm old. Although some argue I'm not that old yet." He frowned for a moment. "And no, I did not know Mozart. Abe was just pulling your leg with that one. I haven't met him, haven't even seen him, not even once. I merely enjoyed his music."

* * *

TBC

 _And just how sick is the internet? When mistyping Kipling as "kippling" (two Ps) into wikipedia, it asked me whether I meant "killing"? Kipling wasn't even an alternative choice ... World going to hell in a handbasket._


	3. Hangover & a Leg

_**Thanks** for the Favs, Follows and the lovely Reviews._

 _Uhem. That said, I hope you will stick with me, because this next chapter ... it totally got away from me. I honestly don't know where that leg came from, it just suddenly was there. But just go and see for yourself. ;)_

* * *

Jo had left Henry's place at almost four in the morning. Abe had protested that it would be much smarter of her to just stay over and sleep on the couch; wouldn't be the first time. But Jo had felt the distinct need to put some space between herself and Henry, Abe, and everything they represented.

She had been convinced that she wouldn't be able to sleep, with all the insane things she had learned that day, had doubted she'd be able to sleep for days. But the moment her head hit the pillow, she was out like a light. It must have been the alcohol.

The morning after she felt like run through a wringer. A dry laugh escaped her. What an out-dated expression, must have caught that from Henry. Seriously, though. Had she dreamed last night? Had she made it all up in a drunken stupor? Or ...

But no, she had found Henry's pocket watch and that banged up photo when she had still been stone cold sober. That's why she'd headed over there in the first place. That's why they'd offered her the Scotch. In regret she rubbed her forehead and temples, hoping she might rub the hangover away.

Her alarm beeped again. Infernal torture device. She smacked the little cherry red clock, cutting off the sound. It was 6:15, which meant she'd slept for - woohoo! - two full hours! "Aspirin," she croaked to herself. "I need a family bottle of aspirin. At least one. And a canister of coffee."

* * *

"Jo?" Hanson smiled at her with a mix of concern and amusement. "Late night, huh?"

Jo dropped into her chair, hiding her face in her hands ... well, her eyes, mainly. This day was entirely too bright. "You have no idea."

A moment later, she was woken up by the sound of a mug put down with force on a wooden table top - when the hell had she fallen asleep?

Hanson only grinned. "I hope it was worth it."

Jo shook her head in the hopes to wake herself up. "Honestly, I don't even know."

"So it was worth it," Hanson concluded. "Too bad for you, we've got a body."

Of course they did. Why would the people of this city suddenly stop killing each other. "Any specifics yet?"

"Yeah. I may have exaggerated a bit. We don't have a body. We have a body _part_."

Jo groaned. "God, I hate those. I hate this city." She hastily drank the coffee, Hanson had brought her. "What part is it?"

"A leg, though if left or right, I don't know."

"Male or female?"

"Don't know, caller didn't say. But Henry will surely tell us all that and more, the moment he sees it."

Jo groaned once more. Henry. Her only hope was that he would have a similarly hard time this morning as she did.

* * *

To her great dismay Jo found Henry to look like he always did: Well groomed, well dressed and in a good mood to the point of being downright chipper.

"Detective!" he greeted her with a broad smile.

"Yeah, yeah." She managed to look him in the eyes for a moment, before she had to turn away. After last night, she had no idea how to face him. Hopefully the leg would offer enough of a distraction to rectify that. "Anything yet?"

"I have only just arrived myself, so ... no. Where is it?" He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves.

A uniformed officer pointed at a greyish plastic sheet spread on the floor next to a dumpster.

"Ah, yes." Henry motioned for the sheet to be lifted, then crouched down next to what was a pretty mangled, bloody, bruised leg. "Right leg, severed most likely right at the hip... Caucasian male," Henry determined without missing a beat. "Judging by colour and density of the hair, I'd say he was young." He prodded the leg once. "Connective tissue seems firm enough to corroborate. I would say anywhere between 25 and 35 ... maybe 40, if he was in good health." He looked up at Jo, who watched his routine with ... well, routine of her own. "But of course, any speculation on the man's health at this point is exactly that: speculation," Henry concluded.

"I don't want you to give him a bill of health," Jo groused. She didn't have the nerves for his spiel, not today. "I want you to tell me how this leg came off the rest of the man, and whether the man might have survived."

Henry dutifully bent over the limb again, paying close attention to the severed end this time. "Skin is torn, so is the muscle tissue. Torn and contused, which is no surprise, considering the state of the rest of the limb." He dug his fingers into the wound, carefully but without hesitation. "Bone is crushed, and there are ... yes, there are fragments embedded in the surrounding tissue."

"So?"

"This man's leg was torn off rather violently. And even if he had received proper medical treatment immediately afterwards, the chances he would have survived this amputation are rather slim."

"Amputation?" Hanson asked. "That's a whitewashing way of putting it."

"Not at all, Detective," Henry contradicted. "It is merely the correct medical term for a limb being separated from the body. Whether it happens in a controlled, surgical fashion or in an uncontrolled, violent way makes no difference in the matter."

"If you say so," Hanson muttered.

Henry smiled in reply and stood up. "For anything else, I will have to examine this limb back in the lab." He took a step away, then stopped and returned. "I advise against hoping to find the rest of him in one piece."

"You mean..."

"I mean to say, that somebody has torn this body to pieces, most likely with some sort of a vice. Peri mortem, as it would appear." With a last greeting nod, he stepped away again, and this time he did actually leave.

"A vice?" the uniformed cop asked.

"Chipper," explained Hanson. "He means a wood-chipper."

The officer sceptically looked at the leg, now being wrapped up to be transported to the morgue. "My chipper would totally freeze up with something even half that size."

"There are those who can decimate a whole tree into a pile of chips in a matter of seconds," Hanson explained. "I've seen it. Kinda eerie, actually." He shook himself once. "Well, not much more to do here ... or anywhere else, for that matter. Not with just one leg."

Jo sighed of relief. "We can go back to the precinct, start a file," she suggested tiredly.

"Check missing persons."

"Wait for further reports on stray body parts."

"Put like a gallon of coffee into you."

Jo grinned stupidly at him. "And a family size package of Aspirin, while you're at it."

Hanson clapped her patronisingly on the shoulder. "Sure. We'll do that."

* * *

 _TBC_

 _Dang, what did I do? Now I need to invent a murder case! Wah!_


	4. Fear & Cowardice

_OK, sorry, this chapter took a bit longer than expected. But I quite unexpectedly had to cook up a murder-case, and a weird one at that, since I set myself up with a single, mangled leg. Had to find a way to make it work. (And also had to change the "post" in "post mortem" from chapter 3 into a "peri".)_

 _Big thanks for the reviews, they're making my day._

* * *

Henry always felt it was quite off, when not an entire body was laid out on the slab before him. It seemed so wrong. Not that complete persons, having met a violent death more often than not, was in any way right. It just seemed...

"Doc?" Lucas looked at him with long suffering patience.

"Ah, yes, right. Sorry. Dismemberment always gives me... I guess 'the creeps' is the acceptable expression nowadays."

"Uh-huh." Lucas pulled up the x-rays he'd had done on the leg. "No breaks," he made it short.

"No?" Henry's interest was immediately piqued. "Huh. I must admit that surprises me."

"Yeah, well." Lucas stared down at the leg. "I see where you're coming from with that."

"Any news, Doc?" Hanson walked into the morgue, wincing a little at the sight of the leg, though probably more for show than from real disgust.

"Detective Hanson..." Henry couldn't stop himself, he looked around Hanson for Jo.

"She's not coming," Hanson explained. "She's too busy not falling asleep. And researching wood chippers that are big enough to be our... uh... thingamajig. Turns out that from a certain size up they're actually called tree-chippers. So, any news?"

Hanson's short monological excursion gave Henry enough time to stow away his disappointment over Jo's current absence and his fear of any future absences. So far she had not called him out on yesterday's events, nor had she called the loony-bin. So far the main crisis seemed to be averted. She seemed to believe him. She didn't know how to deal with it, though, which was why she sent Hanson in her stead. While he understood that, it still hurt.

"Doc!"

Henry actually jumped a bit. "Sorry, sorry." He shook his head. "Well, the leg was indeed torn off peri mortem, I confirm the age-range between 25 and 35 years. I have to correct myself on race, however. The man was not of Caucasian descent as it first appeared, but Hispanic. Blood-type is B+, DNA is not back yet, but as long as there is nothing to check it against, there's no harm in that. Weight is estimated at around 190 pounds - muscle mass, not fat. Height, now that was a bit difficult, because those calculations rely on the length of the femur, which in our case is not complete. But I'm comfortable with an estimate of 5 ft 9."

Hanson nodded. "Anything else?"

"No drugs, but 1.1 promille of alcohol, which is not enough by a long shot to render him unconscious, so it must have been something else."

"How do you know he was unconscious?"

"Have you ever tried to manhandle a conscious man into a tree-chipper?"

"No..."

"Neither have I, but I imagine it would be quite a feat."

Hanson shrugged, then nodded. "Yeah, I imagine you're right about that."

"One more thing, Detective, I cannot determine a precise time of death, not knowing the circumstances under which the leg was kept. But I would say this man did not die any longer than twelve hours ago. There are no signs of tampering, like freezing, but there are also no apparent signs of decomposition. So my guess is, that whoever dumped the leg, did it within the last twelve hours. Eleven hours, considering time for loading and driving."

* * *

Jo knew she was taking the coward's way out by sending Hanson. She just didn't have the stomach for confronting Henry just yet. She knew she had to, sooner or later, but... first she had to get rid of her hangover, that still lingered. Nothing to be gained if she talked with Henry while having a head like a four-wheeler.

She rubbed her eyes, before she turned to her computer screen again. It was quite amazing, how many businesses using an industrial-sized wood chipper there were in New York City. She sighed, rubbed her eyes again. She glanced over to where the techies sat, going through cctv of the area surrounding the dump-site. No news from there yet either.

She got up, got herself another coffee. By now acid reflux was no longer a possibility, but merely a question of time. Too much coffee always did that to her. But it was either that or falling asleep at her desk. And the latter was not an option. She returned to her desk with a full mug, and winced, as her phone rang. "Why's this damn thing so loud?" she wondered in a pained whisper, before she picked up. "Martinez," she said, while dropping heavily into her chair. Only to perk up a moment later, fully alert. "What? Where? When? - Be right there!" She slammed the phone down, jumped off her seat, snatched her jacket and rang Henry's office, out of sheer habit. Dang. Disconnecting before he even picked up, now that was a level of cowardice she didn't want to stoop to. Besides, she really needed Henry there ... well, the ME in charge ... which was Henry ... so there.

"This is Doctor Morgan."

His voice sounded confident and warm like always.

"Henry, I think we've got our crime scene. I need you there to confirm and do your thing. I'm on my way to pick you up."

"I'll be -"

She didn't hear the rest, because she disconnected. Damn. Shit's gonna get real now, she had to face the music... and she desperately needed to stop thinking in proverbs and shallow phrases.

* * *

 _TBC_


	5. Silence & Exuberance

_Okay, hope I can keep up the pace, and get the mixture just right between case and friendship... cross your fingers. ;)_

* * *

The drive to "Henderson's Park Maintenance" - and was _that_ an unimaginative name for a landscaper or what? - was rather uncomfortable for the most part.

"Pat Henderson," Jo started to put Henry in the picture, when they got into her car, "is a contractor for the Central Park Conservancy. He called 911 an hour ago, said he'd found 'stuff' in and around his tree-chipper."

"And since I deduced..."

"Local precinct sent a squad car over," Jo continued, cutting him off. She felt bad for it too, but couldn't stop herself. "They immediately identified the 'stuff' as blood and... well, ex-human."

"Strictly speaking, all the remains are still human, no matter what shape or form..."

"Ew, Henry, not now, not today." Her stomach was already upset as it was. She didn't need to discuss human goo with Henry on top of it. And to think that later she would have to see it - and smell it.

There was a moment, before Henry spoke again. "So you thought, this call and our leg -"

"A bloody wood-chipper warrants a police investigation anytime, severed leg or not." Damn, why did she have to be so bitchy? Was that really just her hangover talking or was she actually pissed? At Henry? But for what? Telling her his secret? Keeping it a secret for so long? But knowing what it was now, she totally got that it was something you had to be extremely cautious about. So what? She decided it was the hangover after all. Much smaller problem, and leaving her to be the much nicer person than the alternative.

"Yes. Of course," Henry said, subdued.

For a moment longer she felt his look burning holes into the side of her face, but then he turned away. For the moment at least, he seemed placated. Or at his wits' end about how he could get things back to normal, to how they had been before. But that wasn't possible, because too much had happened - in a truer sense, probably, than the phrase had ever meant before.

The next twenty-seven minutes passed in utter silence.

"Jo," Henry finally lost his patience. "You have to admit that this is ridiculous."

"Do I? Really?" Wow, probably not the hangover after all, but just her. She really had thought that she had accepted it. Those tall stories of slave ships, gold rush and Jane Austen. But apparently the alcohol had been the bigger part of belief last night.

"Jo, nothing has changed. I am still the same person I was yesterday... and the day before."

She knew that to be true, but still didn't know how to do this, how to believe him - in him - how to treat him. How to be around him.

"Jo..."

"Look, can we just not do this right now? I have a headache like you wouldn't believe, I feel sick, I'm tired, you're way too weird for comfort, I have a hard enough time concentrating on this case as it is, you're weird, and I probably shouldn't even be driving right now. Did I mention that you're weird?"

"I think it was in there somewhere."

She heard him smile. Damn him. This was not a situation to smile in! She was freaking out over... well, not nothing, really, but... This was so not helping. This was serious, whatever it was, and it was freaking her out, much more than it should.

"Do you want us to trade places?" he asked, smiley voice gone now, replaced by worry.

"What?"

"Do you want me to drive?"

"Didn't know you could." Although it should hardly surprise her. The man used phones and computers. Why wouldn't he have learned to drive a car in the hundred-plus years that cars have been around?

"I learned to drive in 19...12? ...13? One of the two. I remember the automobile, though, as if it had been yesterday: A dark green Buick, Model 10." Smiley voice was back again. No doubt a fond memory.

She groaned. He did nothing to help her headache go away.

"Of course, you can't compare the Buick 10 to anything on the streets today. Very different experiences."

"Yeah, modern cars go a lot faster."

Henry made a show of looking out into the stop-and-go traffic. "Hm... not really."

Mischievous little bastard.

"But not to worry, I have evolved my driving skills from there. I owned a Jaguar, once. A 1934 S.S.1. Now that was a car."

She wished he would stop talking. It was like now that the gate was finally open, he wasn't going to censor himself even one tiny bit. "Henry."

"But then the war came, and Abigail and Abraham... You have to think more practical when you're having a family."

"Henry."

"Then again, I haven't been behind a wheel since 1977 or thereabouts, and my license expired in 1985. So maybe it is safer, after all, if you drive." He gave her a sideways glance. "Despite the residual alcohol I suspect in your bloodstream. Are you even legal to drive right now?"

All she could think of as an answer was another exasperated "Henry", and she didn't want to go there. So she just sat and suffered in silence.

"Actually, looking at you, I wonder if you shouldn't have taken a sick day, have a doctor take a look -"

"It was a doctor who did this to me," she interrupted him. "So shut up."

He was indeed silent for a moment. "Actually you did on your own. Abe poured you the first drink, but after that -"

"You provided the booze."

"I'm more of a wine and cognac man. The Scotch was Abe's."

"Shut up. Seriously, Henry."

His hand on her shoulder came so unexpectedly, that she almost jumped, almost swerved the car into the other lane.

"It'll be alright, Jo," he said tenderly. "I know this is not easy to come to terms with, and you have all the time in the world. I only hope for your patience with my exuberant self, but it is quite liberating talking about these things with someone other than Abe, who already knows all my stories."

Jo had to think back to yesterday. "Except Jane Austen," she said.

Henry laughed. "Why yes, I think there is the odd anecdote left.

* * *

 _TBC_


	6. ME's in Charge

_Hello, dear Readers! The following bit is a bit ... gruesome. It's not very graphic (I'd like to think that we would see it like that on the show... somewhat), but I've upped the rating anyways._

 _So, on with the case!_

* * *

Henry felt that a delicate balance had established between them. But he would have to watch the things he said around her, not as closely as before, but he still had to pace himself. He could see now, that he was overwhelming her. Yesterday night was not an indicator for how well she could take the truth, only that she could accept it. Well, part of it anyway. He still hadn't told her about the dying bit. First let her get used to the fact that he was over two centuries old. Ease her into the full truth. Abe was against it, but he had always been one to rush in full steam ahead. He accused Henry of letting Jo believe he was like "the Highlander". - One of these days he really would have to watch that movie to understand the reference.

Jo irritably knocked on the passenger's side window. "I didn't take you along because I wanted a passenger, you know?"

"No, of course not." Although there had been times when that had been reason enough, and they were not so long ago... Just two days. He climbed out of the car and followed Jo into the office of "Henderson's Park Maintenance". The place was filled with police.

"Damn," Jo muttered softly. "If they're going to turn this into a turf-war, I swear -"

"They are only doing their jobs, detective," Henry reasoned. "They're doing what they're supposed to do."

She shot him a glare, but then deftly wiped her face. "You're right. I'm just really having one hell of a day, and..." She cleared her throat. "Hey, officer?" She asked the next best uniformed cop. "Who's in charge here?"

"Detective Robertson, he's out in the yard."

Jo nodded her thanks and walked to the back door leading out to the yard. Henry followed. Outside a team of CSI was just setting up. A man in a bad fitting suit stood to the side of the hubbub, watching

"Detective Robertson?"

The man turned, looked at Henry. "Detective Martinez?"

"No, I'm Dr Morgan, Medical Examiner. She's the one you want." He pointed at Jo, then walked over to the CSI-team.

"Detective", one man in full protective getup stopped him. "That's our turf."

Henry couldn't help but grin.

"We'll let you know the moment we find something you people understand." The man turned to leave.

"Now, sir, if I were an easily offended person, I would be quite offended by your last remark. - Dr Morgan, medical examiner."

The man stopped mid-move. "Sorry," he said after a beat. "I guess that was... rude."

"Yes it was," Henry admitted levelly. "But I'll let it pass, if you allow me access to the scene."

"You're the ME, aren't you in charge anyways?"

Henry only answered with a disarming grin.

"There's a spare set of protective gear over there."

Ten minutes later Henry was unrecognizable, white coverall, gloves, face mask, goggles. For a moment his memory transported him back to London's East End. What a difference. Back then he had walked into the room as he was, just like everybody else. The only reason not to step on anything back then had been to not sully your own clothes and shoes. He shook himself out of the memory, wondering briefly, how Jo would react to him telling her he had examined the last of Jack the Ripper's victims, well the last official one. Would her professional curiosity take over? Or did she maybe already have her suspicions? He had, after all, referred to his original notes during the copycat-case. But no. She might develop her own theories over time, but it was all still too fresh for her.

He crouched down at the edge of the pile of drenched wood, dipped a cotton swab into a spot of semi-dry blood. Enough for DNA-testing. Then he let his eyes travel over the pile of wood, coagulated blood, bits of flesh, pieces of rag, the odd chip of bone, a batch of hair. He was indefinitely glad that he did not have to sift through this mess, separating the wood from the human. Only one more thing to do for him: take a look at the device itself.

It was a stationary piece of machinery, about five feet high, standing on an approximate square of seven by seven feet, bright blue with a few red details. The inlet for the trees to go in seemed easily big enough, but one look inside revealed, that it was formed like a funnel, and at the end of it it seemed hardly big enough to fit a man in. And true enough, a piece of hipbone stuck out from between the barrels, and also a fair amount of cloth. No wonder the chipper had frozen up on the killer. It was beyond the machine's capabilities. Henry stood up, walked over to where Jo was quietly talking with Robertson.

"Done already?" Robertson asked.

"I have seen everything I have to see, yes," Henry answered, pulling face mask and goggles off and gratefully pulling open the overall. Those things were a true nightmare to wear.

Robertson meaningfully looked over to the CSI-team who were still only starting their work.

Jo smiled complacently to herself, Henry noticed with pleasure. "Well, it is quite obvious, what happened," he told Robertson in his most pleasant, calm voice. "The victim was pushed into the tree-chipper head first. And while the human body doesn't pose much of a problem for this device in terms of destructive force, the human hipbone is simply too big for the inlet. An obstacle that could have been overcome with a little more time. But the perpetrator failed to undress his victim before shredding him."

Jo and Robertson both winced.

"Forgive the term, but I can assure you in this case it is quite accurate."

"Whatever, just go on," Jo said, and her look warned him to burst into lecture.

"Certainly. See, the clothes were shredded to rags, and the rags wrapped themselves around the barrels and the gears, and the whole thing just stopped. Inspiring our killer to take the intact legs and dispose of them elsewhere. And yes, I think the other leg will turn up somewhere, sooner or later. Everything from the hips up..." He turned and pointed at the yard. "Everything else you can see over there."

* * *

TBC

 _The next bit will have a bit more Henry-Jo-interaction in it, I promise. This is not just about the case. ;)_


	7. Abridged Truth

_Damn, this was tough one to write. Version after version just didn't sound right, and so I had to start over and over and over again. I feel tentatively confident about this version, though I'm sure it could still be better. At the same time I'm pretty sure, if I keep doctoring about with this one, it will only turn worse again. So there._

 _Hope you enjoy._ ;)

* * *

"So," Jo said, when they were back in the car, "Robertson wasn't a total douche. Actually, he was kind of alright."

"You sound surprised."

"Well, after thinking you were the detective, and I was the tag-along... he kind of was off to a bad start with me."

"Tag-along?"

She immediately felt bad for what she'd said. "Oh no, Henry, that's not how I meant it, it's just... I hate how people still automatically think, it is the _man_ who is in charge."

He chuckled. "Relax, Jo. I get it."

"No, really..."

"Jo, I do get it," he interrupted her.

She still seemed rather doubtful. "I just wonder how emancipation must look to you. I mean, you grew up in a time when women were..." She didn't go on, just looked somewhat embarrassed. Like she thought it was partly his fault that the times had been the way they had.

"Decorative?" he took a guess. "Unpaid cook and seamstress? Mother if she was lucky?"

She shook her head. "No! - Yes... Oh, I don't know."

"No reason to be ashamed of thinking it," he said conciliatorily. "That's pretty much what a woman could expect out of her life; right into the 20th century, actually."

"You... you were married," she asked. "Twice, right?"

"Yes." he didn't remember telling her about Nora. "I'm sorry, I can't quite remember what I told you yesterday. It was all a bit much, and totally out of order, and... overwhelming."

She burst into stressed-out laughter. "Overwhelming? It was overwhelming for _you_?"

"As a matter of fact," he confirmed. "I realize, of course, that it must have been quite overwhelming for you, too. But believe me, being suddenly able to talk about my life so freely, it is quite staggering."

She fought the laughing down. "I'm sorry, I can only imagine what this must mean to you."

She couldn't possibly, but he felt that there was nothing to be gained by telling her that.

She started the car, and for a few minutes they drove in silence. "So you were married," she returned to the topic. "Abigail and... I forgot the other."

"Nora. Her name was Nora."

"And? Was it a typical marrige for the time?"

Henry thought back to his first wife. "No, I wouldn't say so. It was an arranged marriage - my family had the money, her family had a respectable name and connections to society."

"That really mattered?"

"Oh, it matterd. And we quickly learned to love each other, which actually wasn't at all uncommon, despite what you may think about it. More often than not parents had a talent to combine opportunity with a truly good match for their children. They didn't want their children to be unhappy, just like parents today."

Judging by her expression she found that hard to believe, but she didn't say anything.

"But those two facts aside, I wouldn't say that our marriage was very conventional, no. We were both relatively old when we got married. I was 31, she was 24 - at which age she was already considered a bit of an old maid. And we didn't have any children." Though not for lack of trying. Before his first death - and for the little while betweenhis return and her betrayal - they had had a very healthy sex-life.

"Henry?"

"Sorry, lost in thought... memory."

"You don't have to tell me, you know? Just because now you can, doesn't mean you have to. It's still your choice what you tell me and what not. If it's too painful or something..."

He shook his head. "It's not that." But, of course, it was. Yet he didn't want to give her the impression that he didn't trust her. It was important that she felt safe asking him any question that came to her mind. At least now, while this new aspect of their friendship was still developing. But there was always an abridged version of the truth. "In theory we were married for over fifty years. But we only spent the first three years together."

"Why, what happened?"

"I embarked on a ship to America and died?" How could she have forgotten that? He had told her about that first death, and about how it had inexplicably stopped his aging, and made him immortal. It was one of the first things he'd told her.

"Oh, right... Sorry, my brain's not at its best today. So that was then, huh?"

"Yes. I returned, told her what happened and..." ... and she had shunted him off to Bedlam. "... and she didn't believe me. We lived separated for the rest of our lives. Only reunited briefly towards the end of her life, although 'reunited' is probably too strong a word." He was hedging. "It was not pretty what happened, and I am not proud of how I handled the situation. She publicly claimed that I was her long lost, immortal husband..."

"Wow, she did that?"

"And I pretended not to know her, told everyone that she was just an old, confused woman."

"Not nice, granted, but what could you have possibly done? Admit it? She was how old, seventy? And you... you looked like you do now. - Wow, it still sounds crazy."

"You'll get used to it. And yes, I thought so, too. Elderly people tend to become whimsical. But Nora, she was adamant about proving her claim. So she brought a gun, intended to shoot me."

"She what?!"

"A nurse stepped in front of me, trying to protect me." He had to swallow the pain and guilt he still felt over that. "She died. So... as I said, not my proudeest moment."

"It's not like you pushed her in front of you, right?"

"No, but... If Nora had shot me... nothing would have happened. I would have had to uproot my life, but that was waiting for me anyway, so... That nurse, she died a completely senseless, needless, unnecessary death." He took a becalming breath. "I did what I could to keep Nora out of prison and off the gallows. She didn't deserve either for telling what was - after all - simply the truth."

"So what happened to her?"

"Mental Asylum, which ws not such a bad place anymore in the 1860s. A basic understanding of mental illness has been established, people didn't believe anymore that obscure draconic treatments could cure delusions. And the confused elderly were treated relatively well, provided they were docile. And if you paid enough. She died four years later of natural causes." Sounded so much better than pneumonia, caught in the cold, damp building of Charring Cross. Or broken heart over his betrayal. "According to the reports I received, she really had been senile towards the end." Probably brought on by being surrounded by senile people all day long, every day.

"I'm sorry, I guess," she offered after a moment.

"Yeah, well. As I said, not a traditional marriage for the time."

"I'll say."

They spent the remaining drive in mutual silence, until Jo parked her car.

"Where are we?" Henry looked around curiously.

"Well, Robertson organised a llist of Henderson's current and former employees. Thankfully a pretty short list. I got the three current and two of the former ones. He kept the names of the remaining six former employees."

Henry nodded. "Because whoever did this, had to have access to the machine."

She shot him a dirty look. "Gee, you think, Captain Obvious?"

"That's a modern colloquial, right?"

She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile tugging at her lips.

The first of the current employees was easily elliminated as a suspect. She had spent the last four days in hospital after an appendectomy.

The second took almost five minutes to show up at the door. He had partied through the night - and had roughly 200 time-stamped pictures and videos on his phone proving this. Henderson had sent him home, and he had gladly gone back to bed to sleep it off. Jo ws interminably envious of him.

The remaining third current employee was not answering his door or his phone, not even after five minutes.

"Interesting," Jo said.

"Maybe he was at the same party as Rudy Friess," Henry suggested, playing devil's advocate.

Jo gave him a _seriously?_ -look, before resorting to calling Henderson. "Romano Lopez didn't show up for work this morning. Henderson hadn't even noticed with all the ruckus going on," she relayed a minute later. "That officially puts him at the top of my list. How about you?"

* * *

TBC


	8. Romano & Filipe

_Oh, you people are amazing! **THANK YOU** for sticking with me and letting me know your appreciation. It's a delight._

 _And I aplogize for the typos I made in previous chapters and that I only just found now when reading the chapters to find the best way to continue. I may go and exchange the chapters with corrected versions._

* * *

Hours later Romano Lopez was officially listed as "on the run". Well, not officially-officially, more like... unofficially-officially... like. Jo sighed. She just wished this day would be over already. Instead she was on the way to see Romano's twin brother, Filipe, in hopes that he might give some clues to his whereabouts.

Things with Henry had levelled out, so at least that was out of the way. Mostly, anyway. There was still loads of stuff to go through with him, but it didn't have to happen all at once. And after tossing out random memories in the morning, he seemed to have got that too, because after the talk about Nora he had remained persistently in the present.

Or maybe she had unknowingly struck a bigger nerve when asking about his first wife, than she had realized. But she had been curious. Yesterday night he had talked about Abigail for three hours flat. Sharing anecdotes with Abe, reminiscing and raving about tiny things like her lasagne. Towards the end of the three hours it had become a bit uncomfortable, Henry emanating a hopeless desire and yearning, until Abe hat intervened, pulling them in a different direction.

How much pain was there really connected to Nora?

She felt like giving herself a good smack in the face for being so stupid. Were she sober and well rested, she would have never made that mistake. And now she couldn't even apologize to him for it, because that would only bring it back up. But in future she would have to be more careful about what questions she asked.

"Jo?"

Somehow she had driven over to Filipe's work place while miles away in her mind, and had even parked the car. All to now sit behind the wheel and stare holes into the air before her.

"Are you alright? Look at me." Henry's voice was that of a doctor talking to his patient.

"Tired. Still hung over, although I have a feeling that's getting a bit better as the day drags on."

He looked at her with a curious mixture of professional and personal concern. "Sure? We could swing by my home, and I could make you a concoction to help with the headache. It's not that far."

"Maybe after this interview?" Henry's offer reminded her of Abe's hangover-remedy, and how little she wanted to taste that one ever again.

"After this interview you go home and sleep," Henry told her decisively.

"After this interview I go back to the precinct and add my findings to the file."

Henry shrugged, disapproval in his features, but he wisely didn't press the matter any further.

Filipe Lopez was managing the office and showroom of a plumber's service. He walked up to them with a professional smile plastered onto his face. "Good afternoon, how can I help you today?"

"Detective Martinez from the NYPD. Filipe Lopez?"

He showed confusion. "Did I park my car wrong or something?"

"No, we're actually looking for your brother. There has been an incident at his workplace last night, and we were hoping to talk to him about it, but we couldn't find him. Any chance you know where he might be?"

He stared at her for a moment. "Sorry. We're brothers, and we're close - we're twins, you know. But I don't know where he is 24/7."

"Places he likes to hang out at? Girlfriend, maybe?" Jo prompted.

Filipe shrugged, and it was obvious that he was suddenly feeling uncomfortable. "There was a girl, but they broke up... recently, actually. It was a bad breakup, so I doubt he'd go to see her."

"Why don't you give us her name and address anyway, so we can go check? We really need to speak to your brother."

"And if you don't mind," Henry cut in, "are you identical twins?"

Filipe nodded. "Do you need, like, a photo or something?"

"A DNA-sample, if you please." Out of nowhere he produced a cotton swab complete with plastic capsule to protect the sample from contamination.

"What was that about?" Jo asked, when they stepped out onto the street again.

"I just wondered... What if we can't find Romano, because we already found him? Parts of him, anyway."

Jo stopped dead in her tracks. Why had she not seen this?

"My estimates on our victim fit Filipe to a T. And seeing as how they are identical twins..."

"You don't have to explain, I see it. Now that you mentioned it."

"And because you didn't see this on your own, I'm now taking you home, no discussions. This is the physician in me talking. You are now officially unfit for work, and I'll defend that decision in front of the Lieutenant, tooth and nail, if need be." He held out his hand to her.

"What?" She looked at his hand.

"Keys. I'm driving."

"You said you haven't driven in like forty years or something."

"True enough, but I also have sixty years of driving-experience prior to that, so I'm still in the plus."

"You're not legal to drive, your license has expired."

"And you are about to keel over, so all things considered, I think I'm the safer bet."

It was testimony to how beat she was that she didn't put up more of a fight, but just gave in.

It was weird, watching him behind the wheel, though. He spent a minute adjusting the mirrors and the seat, then carefully filtered the car into the traffic. He drove slowly, and she realized that he was actually nervous about it, but he brought her home safely, parked the car, walked her to her door. "Hydrate and sleep, and don't worry about another thing. We'll pick up the case tomorrow morning."

She felt like hugging him for a moment, but that would be weird, so she just nodded and said her good-bye. Until tomorrow.

* * *

 _TBC_


	9. Diary of Deaths

_Yes. I am that cruel._

* * *

Henry took a cab; first to the genetics-lab to add that extra bit of urgency by delivering Filipe's DNA-sample in person. Then to the precinct to clear Jo's absence with Lieutenant Reece. Not an easy task that, but he stood his ground even while apologizing profoundly for being the cause of Jo's poor health.

After that he had a quick talk with Hanson. Jo had phoned in everything they'd learned from Filipe, but just in case questions had arisen in the meantime. There hadn't. The girlfriend's name was still Edita Pinero, she was still 27 years of age, and still a flight attendant. And she was still at large.

"Go home, Henry," Hanson said. "Or go to the morgue. Or... where ever you feel a need to go."

Henry wasn't one to be ordered around, though. "Just one more question."

Hanson put on an indulgent half-smile. "What, Detective Columbo?"

Henry didn't quite understand the tease. It rang a bell somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. So he decided to ignore it. "The other leg, it hasn't turned up yet, has it?"

"No. If it had, be sure I would have called to have you take a look at it."

"Of course. Right."

"And now _go home_."

Henry wanted to. It had been a trying day, and he still felt the strain of the previous night. He may not have had as much to drink as Jo, and he may have got a little more sleep than her, but a restful night it had been not.

He went to the morgue. Because he just couldn't go home yet.

"Hey, Henry!" Lucas greeted him with his signature lopsided grin. "Didn't think to see you here again today. So, how's the hunt going for the rest of leg-guy?"

"Sometimes, Lucas," Henry said tiredly, "I wonder about your lack of respect for the dead."

"What? Why...?" Like so often, Lucas was clueless about why being reprimanded.

Henry sighed. It was hopeless. Lucas was who he was, and for the most part that was a decent enough young man. "We found the device and most of our victim. Only the left leg is still missing. I wonder why. The right leg was lying there, pretty much out in the open. Why has nobody found the other one yet?"

"Maybe the killer hid that one first, but it took too much time and effort, so when it came to the other leg, he was running out of patience and/or time, and decided he would just dump the other." He shrugged. "I mean, he must have known that... The rest of our guy was really run through a wood chipper?"

Henry nodded.

"Wow. Well, as I was saying, the killer must have realized that those remains would be found by morning, so... why bother?"

Those were good thoughts, and Henry wished he had had them himself. "Well, that much is obvious," he said nonchalantly. "But it doesn't reveal the deeper motivation. Why did he run out of time? Did he have to go to work, maybe? Why hide the legs – or one leg, at least – when he must have known that the shredded pieces of his victim would be detected come morning. And he must have known that an identification is just as difficult to do with a leg than with little pieces of..." He interrupted himself. Much as he loved the solving of puzzles, it was not his job to reflect on those things. His job was to read everything there was to read in and from a body – or a body part, as it was – and pass on his findings to the police. That was his job.

"So..." Lucas said into the spreading silence. "A wood chipper, huh? And you saw the bits and pieces?"

"Yes..."

"That must have been something," Lucas mused, rather to himself

But it was still loud enough so Henry could hear it, and he didn't much care for the almost admiring tone of voice. "As a matter of fact, Lucas, it was something," he flared up. "It was something gruesome, something unbelievable in its portrayal of violence and heartlessness. It was something nobody should ever wish to see."

Another silence spread in the morgue. Lucas looked around, appropriately chastised. At least this time he definitely knew why he had been reprimanded.

The silence lengthened.

Lucas wisely held his tongue. Henry wracked his brain for something he could do. There was nothing.

"Maybe I should just go home," Henry finally said. "Call if there is anything new that I should know."

"Actually, I was thinking of leaving early myself?" Lucas' voice was small, but still hopeful. "There's this group of film makers that I'm trying to get into..."

"Fine," Henry gave in tiredly. "Whatever." As Hanson had told him not half an hour earlier: If there was any new development, he would call.

* * *

Henry breathed of relief, when he exited the cab in front of the shop. Ever since Adam had killed poor Mr Patel for his cab - for the sole reason to abduct and kill Henry... Ever since then Henry felt a bit apprehensive in cabs. Which was stupid, of course. After all, Adam was safely stashed away in a private facility, a living corpse, his malicious mind imprisoned within his own incapacitated body... Henry yanked himself out of his vengeful thoughts. It wasn't doing any good. Adam was done and dealt with.

The shop was already locked for the evening, Abraham upstairs with Dean Martin playing loudly. Which meant he was preparing something Italian for dinner. If only Henry had an appetite.

He pulled open the trap door to his basement laboratory and headed straight over to the shelf where he kept his "Diary of Deaths". He took it over to the desk and flipped through the pages. Quite remarkable how many deaths he had recorded in there in the one hundred and fifty two years since he started it. He turned to the last page, looking down at his notes. Cause of death, concomitant circumstances, pain level, estimated duration of death... The last of his deaths, the one in the abandoned subway station by Adam's hand, was still not in there. And he hesitated to put it in.

Not because the death itself was terribly remarkable. He had been shot before. And when a bullet entered your chest, it was pretty much inessential how fast it travelled, or how precise the aim was. It hit you, it hurt, you died.

But what did this particular death mean? Obviously, Adam had been wrong about it bringing on the ultimate death. Henry had reappeared in water, just like every other time in the past two hundred years.

Henry unscrewed his ink bottle, dipped in the pen, and began to write:

 _CoD: Shot by flintlock (the one!) -_ _Adam  
PL: __5 - he scratched that out and put down instead:_ _4 1/2  
DoD: app. 57 seconds  
ConCirc: Jo found out. Told her my age._

And that was it. Such a monumental incident in his life, reduced to four short lines. He used to write in great detail what had happened and how and why. But that only hid the pertinent information in a mass of words. So he had reduced himself more and more, until today an entire death and all that lead to it and came as a consequence of it, could be fit into four short lines.

Almost by themselves his fingers leafed through the pages, not wanting to find but searching nonetheless. They stopped at the 7th of April, 1871.

The entire day he had repressed that particular memory, but now there was nothing anymore to distract him.

 _Cause of Death: bandsaw  
Pain Level: 10 (but thankfully rather quick)_

He had not noted down approximations for the duration of his respective deaths that early into his studies. Under concomitant circumstances he had written four pages. He didn't read through the entire sermon, because it was basically immaterial. And he remembered the incident quite clearly anyway. There are things you just never forget, no matter how long you lived.

What it burned down to, was basically this: He had been drunk, had got into a fight with the owner of the local sawmill – equally drunk – and... The other man had thrown him on the conveyer system of the saw. The riffled steel barrels had knocked the wind out of him and rendered him momentarily paralyzed. And they had carried him steadily, mercilessly closer to the moving bandsaws.

He had written "rather quick", and objectively it probably had been true, it couldn't have taken more than a few seconds for him to die, but it surely hadn't felt quick. It had felt like an eternity.

"Still with the documentation?" came Abe's mildly reproachful voice from the staircase.

Henry jumped and snapped the journal shut.

"Aren't you growing tired of that? I mean, what's the point? You obviously aren't finding the solution to your problem in those notes. So why keep going?"

Henry could only look at Abe, thankful for his son's timing and overwhelmed for a moment by the love he felt for him. He cleared his throat. "I am, if nothing else, a scientist," he said, fighting for a calm, level tone. "Scientists take notes. And one day, who knows, I just might find the solution in the collected data. In any case, there is no harm in it. At best it contains the solution to my problem, at worst it helps me pass the time."

Abe shook his head. He would never understand; couldn't. "Dinner's ready," he said. "Tortellini in Carbonara sauce."

"I'll be up in a minute," Henry promised.

* * *

TBC


	10. Six and a Half Theories

"Here you go." Abe set a full plate down in front of Henry.

It smelled delicious. Well, nothing less had Henry expected. His son was an excellent cook... got that from his mother. Only Henry still didn't feel very hungry. He skewered a few of the tortellini and nibbled on them.

"Something wrong with the sauce?" Abe inquired, trying to hide his hurt chef's pride.

"No. No, it's good. Everything you cook is always good. Your mother taught you well."

"I like to think that I just have a natural gift for it."

"Well, Abigail surely knew how to nurture that gift."

"Yeah, she did. So why aren't you eating?"

Henry put his fork down and pushed the plate away an inch. "I'm sorry, it's just this whole day..."

"Jo?" Abe guessed. "Is she backtracking, now that she's sobered up?"

"She's not quite sobered up yet." Henry took a look at the kitchen clock. "Well, I guess she is by now. And also fast asleep. I hope."

"Which means?"

Henry sighed. "Which means, we reached a sort of truce, if you will. It is still a little unsteady, I'd say, but... Well, I'm still a free man, so that's something."

"And you still haven't told her about the dying and the East River."

"No."

"Henry, you have to! The way you go about your life, it's just a question of time until you die again, and what if she's there and witnesses it? Don't let her find out that way. It would be unnecessarily cruel and would shatter what trust she still has in you."

He was right. But he clearly hadn't thought this through the way he had. "And what exactly would I tell her?"

"What d'you mean? The truth, of course. You die, you come back in the East River, good as new."

"But is that still true?"

Abe looked at him confused. "Why wouldn't it be? Adam shot you with the flintlock – it was the flintlock, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"So, he shot you with the flintlock, in accord with your insane plan, and you returned. Adam was obviously wrong." He spread his arms in triumph.

"Maybe. That is certainly one of the possibilities."

"What other possibilities are there? You died, you popped back up in the East River. I should know, I was there, I saw it happen. Adam was wrong."

"Yes. But one might argue that it wasn't the flintlock that killed me, but the bullet that was shot from it."

"Oh." Abe's self assured face disappeared, replaced by a frown. "That would be bad, huh?"

"Yes, that would be bad. Because that bullet landed somewhere in the Atlantic, where the salt water surely has long since dissolved it."

"Any other theories? Because these two don't sound all that rosy."

"As a matter of fact, I have worked out six so far. One: Your assumption is correct, and Adam was just simply wrong with his theory. After all, he doesn't know any more about our condition than I do, so it was not more than guesswork to begin with. – Plausible, mind you, but still just a guess. Two: As I already stated, it might have been the bullet, not the gun. Three: There simply might not be a cure. Adam and I, we are doomed to roam this earth for all eternity. Until there is no water left to come back in."

In front of his inner eye, Henry saw a lifeless, barren landscape. He was up to date with current evolutionary theories about the fate of planet Earth. "Which makes me think of another possibility, I think we could file that one under three B: We may have been given a fixed amount of time, and no matter what, we have to live through that time until it's up. And then we just die."

"That sounds silly."

"But not less possible than living for 200 years and surviving a great variety of deadly incidents."

Abe nodded. "True enough. I give you that one."

"Theory number four, the weapon which made one mortal man immortal, might make an immortal man mortal again, and kill him permanently."

"So, the pugio might kill you and the flintlock might kill him. Huh. Interesting thought."

"Unfortunately, only testable if I shoot Adam with my flintlock, or kill myself with his pugio. Neither of which I'm comfortable to do."

"Thank god," Abe mumbled.

"Theory number five, Adam was almost right. Being killed by the flintlock a second time returned me to being mortal. – That's my favourite. And easily tested, too. By the simple passage of time."

"You mean, if you suddenly start aging, getting grey hair and wrinkles and all that..."

"I'd be a very happy man indeed."

"Leaves number six."

"Theory number six. There has been one death that had turned me immortal. There might be a random other way of dying that will return me to being mortal and killing me permanently. Completely untestable, entirely left to chance. And in that, I quite like that one as well. Because it means, I have as little control over death than everybody else, and that makes me comfortingly human."

"Henry, you _are_ human. Never let anyone tell you otherwise."

Henry wasn't so sure about that, but he intended not to ruin his son's illusions.

"And 'anyone' includes you too, you hear me?" Abe accusingly pointed a finger at him.

Henry smiled in defeat. In moments like this he wondered who of them was the father and who the son. "I'll do my best, I promise."

Abe pushed Henry's plate back towards him. "So, can we eat now?"

Henry picked up his fork again, but he still didn't feel very hungry.

"What is it now?" Abe asked with reproach.

"Just the case."

"Must be a real bad one if you let it ruin your appetite. Not even your own deaths necessarily hamper that."

"A man got pushed into a wood-chipper."

"Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as bad. Still. Wasn't you, so you still got a body to maintain."

Henry forced a smile, then resolved to just eat, appetite or not. He had told Abe about most of his deaths, but he had left out the more gruesome ones. Being blown up with a keg of powder sounded not half bad. It sounded, most importantly, like a quick and painless death. Which it had been. It had been, in fact, so quick and painless that he only knew he must have died, because he'd suddenly found himself floating naked in the Hudson Bay, a quarter of a mile from shore.

But telling your son, no matter how grown up he may be, that you've been sawed to pieces... entirely different matter.

* * *

TBC


	11. Henry on a sober Mind

_Ok, back to the case. There is still a murderer to catch._ ;)

* * *

Jo turned the alarm off. No comparison to waking up yesterday. Today she was rested and alert and... still not quite sure how to deal with Henry and his revelation. But she'd deal with all that when she next met him, which was probably today, but not for another few hours. So no reason to get all worked up over it yet.

She sat up. Well, in a way, he was still the same old Henry like she'd known him for nine months now. Just simply... a little... older. She laughed softly to herself before she got up and hit the shower.

To her own surprise, her thoughts pretty quickly moved away from Henry and his secret to yesterday's case. She liked ticking off facts and suspicions and assumptions before starting the day; helped her in keeping the investigation to the point. When she towelled off, she had reassured herself that talking to the victim's ex-girlfriend had to be the next step. And maybe another talk with the brother wouldn't hurt either. Because one thing was pretty much sure in her mind: Their victim was indeed Romano Lopez... or was it Rodriguez? Damn, it was a wonder she remembered anything at all from the case. She wondered if it was too early to call Henry... On second thought, Henry was not likely to know anything new, so...

Oh, to hell with it, she just wanted to talk to him. See how it would all fit a sober mind. It sat well with a drunk mind, sat moderately comfortable with a hung-over one. Now...

But the case came first. So she would drive over to the precinct, get together with Hanson, and see if something had come up since yesterday. The Uniforms may have located the girlfriend...

"She's in Hong Kong," Hanson told her, when she asked fifty minutes later.

Jo stared at him disbelievingly. "She is _where_? What the hell is she doing there?"

Hanson handed her a file. "Turns out she's a stewardess."

"They're called flight attendants now," Jo interrupted.

"Flying waitress," Hanson countered, just a smidge belligerent.

Jo gave up with a very small eye roll and a very silent sigh. "So, she's in Hong Kong. Do we feel that's suspicious, or was she scheduled for the flight?"

"Switched with one Sarina Thompson-Garrish," Hanson answered, while Jo scanned the file. "But it turns out that the switch was initiated by Sarina, who has caught a cold. Uniforms went over to check and confirm. Apparently she sneezed every other minute, and..."

"... and she has a doctor's notice," Jo finished, as she had just found a copy of said notice in the file.

"Yes, but it's still possible that it came at a very convenient time for Edita."

"When's she expected back?"

"Tomorrow."

"We're having plans to pick her up right off the plane?"

"Set into motion as we speak. Also, Henry called."

Jo perked up immediately, but tried to appear as if she were interested only professionally. "What about?"

"He called, saying that the leg and Filipe Lopez share a blood type."

"It would be foolish of me to hope that there are any DNA-results yet?"

"Foolish is too nice a word for what it would be. However," Hanson continued, "Henry also said that he's confident in identifying our victim as Romano Lopez."

Jo nodded; so it was Romano, not that she hadn't already been sure about that. "Let's talk to Filipe again, then. Twins are notorious for being very close to each other. I didn't buy his 'I'm not my brother's keeper'-routine yesterday, and I certainly don't buy it today."

"One trip to the plumber it is."

"Just one more thing first..."

"Detective," Felipe Lopez stepped in front of them with a frown on his face. "I don't know where my brother is anymore today, than I did yesterday."

"Hm." Jo nodded, as if in understanding. "But see, I have a problem believing that. You are identical twins..."

"Not all twins do everything together all the time," he interrupted. "That's a common misperception."

"You also don't seem to be too worried," Hanson said.

Filipe just looked at him confused.

"And that's what I really have a problem with," Jo took over again. "A police detective shows up at your work place, asks about your brother, and ... you don't try to reach him, not even once?"

"How would you..."

"We checked your phone-records before we came over here," Hanson explained slightly smug. "And I must say, I agree with her: Why didn't you try to call him?"

"Maybe because you already knew he was dead?" Jo asked the instrumental question.

"Romano..." Filipe started, but he didn't add anything to it.

"Mr Lopez, somebody pushed your brother through the tree chipper at his work place."

Filipe turned white. "W-what?" His voice was squeaky and his eyes aimlessly travelled around the showroom for a moment.

"You heard," Hanson simply said.

"You knew where he worked," Jo took over again in the ping-pong interview they were conducting. "And he had keys to Henderson's yard. It would have been easy to go over there with him, under some pretence, and then -"

"Why would I kill my own brother?" Filipe interrupted.

"I don't know," Jo admitted. "At the moment we don't know why anybody would have wanted to kill him. But the fact is, he's dead. And he died in a really unpleasant manner. And in my professional experience, when family doesn't care enough to phone each other after the police come inquiring... it usually means that they have something to do with the murder."

"Are you... Excuse me, but are you telling me, he was _alive_ , when he was..." Filipe didn't go on, because he was literally gasping for air suddenly, and he looked like his knees might give out any moment.

Jo felt sorry for him instantly. His shock was genuine. Whatever he knew about his brother's death – and she was still convinced that there was a connection – he had not known this. "Your brother may have died moments before that", she said, her voice soft and compassionate. "But even if not, he did not suffer, our medical examiner was very clear about that."

Filipe started to hyperventilate.

"So, please, Mr Lopez, whatever you know about this, you have to tell us."

But Filipe was beyond words now. Tears in his eyes, he blindly walked through the showroom, in search for a chair, before he simply sank to the floor where he stood and started sobbing.

"Obviously he's not our guy," Hanson said softly.

"No," Jo agreed. "But he must know something."

"Not that we'll be getting it out of him anytime soon."

"D'you think we should call an ambulance or something?"

Hanson thought for a moment, before he pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

"So what do we know about Edita?" Jo asked back at the precinct. "Was she strong enough to manhandle a man of Romano's stature into that chipper? He weighed roughly 200 pounds, that's a lot of weight to move around, especially when he's been unconscious and limp."

Hanson pulled up the pictures of the tree chipper, and technical sheet. "The inlet is just above knee-height, there is a conveyor system. Once the system caught a grip on the body, the rest wouldn't have required much strength. I figure, if it was her, she had a much harder time dislodging the legs from the machine, once it froze up, than she had pushing the whole man in."

"So you think it's possible that it was her."

"I think we shouldn't dismiss the possibility."

"Fair enough."

* * *

TBC


	12. Alexander Graham Bell in the Morgue

_Phew! You wouldn't believe the trouble this bit gave me. But I think I've restled it down now._

* * *

With one suspect in hospital, being treated for shock, and the other still in Hong Kong, there was little to do except sorting through details, checking and rechecking them. That left enough time to squeeze in some quality time with Henry, Jo decided.

She found him in his office, bent over some papers and a lunchbox by his side with bread and what looked like sliced roast beef. He looked up with an indignant frown, "Oh, what is it now, Lu-" That's when he realised she wasn't Lucas. "Oh... it's... you."

Jo stumbled in her step for a moment. What the hell?

"Anything I can help you with, Detective?" He recovered remarkably quickly from his shock and was his usual pleasing, obliging self. Although, for those who knew him well, there was also a certain nervousness.

"Detective?" she challenged and sat down unasked. "Seriously?"

"Is that not what you are?"

Jo could only stare at him in disbelief for a few seconds. "What? Henry, what is this? What's going on?"

"Nothing." But he was still nervous, even more so now than before.

"Just what am I gonna do with you?" she sighed and dropped into his leather chair.

Henry cleared his throat. "Look, Jo..." He didn't go on. He seemed confused

"Henry, what happened between yesterday evening and this morning?"

"Nothing. I went home, spent some time in my laboratory, I had dinner, went to sleep, had breakfast, came into work and..."

"... and then you called Hanson instead of me," she finished his sentence.

"Well, it was still rather early, I was not sure if you would be up and ready."

"It wasn't _that_ early. You've called me earlier than that before, and you know it."

"Not after you've had a hard day like yesterday."

"Henry, none of my days has ever been even remotely like yesterday. And thanks to you I was in bed before it was even dark outside. Let me assure you: I am rested."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"So why..."

"I called the office, and Hanson happened to pick up. I'm hardly to blame for that."

"Really, that's the story you're going with?"

"It's what happened."

"You usually call me on my cell. You usually call _me_."

He turned away. "I..."

"You've been avoiding me," she encapsulated.

"I have not." He had the audacity to be indignant about it.

"Oh please, of course you have. At least have the decency to admit it. You are retreating, and that's just not fair! Not after making me your friend, and after dumping your crazy life-story on me. You fill my head with stories about the great earth quake of 1906 in San Francisco, and how you went to help. You tell me about Kipling and Hemingway, about Jane Austen, about liberating a ship full of slaves ... You tell me that Abe, who looks twice your age, is your son. You tell me stories about the gold rush in the Yukon... And crazy as all that sounds, I'm still here. Out of the two of us, I'm the one who actually has a right to behave funny, not you. So what's wrong?"

"Jo, I'm not..."

"You called me 'Detective' when I came in just now. How is that not a retreat? How is that not you pulling back? I may not have known you for very long, but I know you pretty well. This is your impeccably polite way of putting a distance between yourself and me. The only thing I don't understand is: why? Why trust me with this secret, and then shut me out?" Maybe, she thought, because of Nora. What had she grazed yesterday that had spooked him?

He deflated, just a bit. "I overwhelmed you," he said softly, "yesterday, and the night before, and I'm so sorry for it. I came to the conclusion that it's better if I give you time to get used to this whole new situation; maybe even give you a chance to back out gracefully." His voice had grown ever softer the longer he spoke.

"Is that what you want? After all that's happened?"

"No," he quickly assured her. "But being friends with me is not easy."

"You mean it's going to become even worse?"

He smiled at her little joke, but only for a moment. "I mean it, Jo, it's not easy."

"For me or for you?"

He swallowed. "Both, I guess," he admitted. "It is certainly difficult for me."

Of course. He knew he was going to survive them all. He knew he would lose his son, and soon. He had already lost his wife – two wives – and friends whose number she could only guess at. He would lose her, too, one day. "But is that reason enough to stop making friends altogether?" she asked. "Losing Sean has been one of the worst experiences of my life, but I wouldn't miss a second I spent with him. And I'd marry him all over again, even knowing I would lose him so soon. Too soon. It's worth the pain."

He frowned, obviously he disagreed with her.

"Would you rather not have met Abe? Or Abigail?"

His lips tightened for a moment, before he shook his head. "Of course not. But there is only so much one can take. You have forty, maybe fifty, years of possible pain and heartbreak before you. And then, you know for a fact, there will be an end. I have..." He shook his head. "I don't even know. I'm only two centuries old now, and already I've had about enough of it. A human heart can be broken only so many times. And I do have, as Abe so persistently reminds me, a human heart. What will it be like... What will I be like after two millennia?" He looked away.

Jesus, what had she done? She just had to go and make him feel all miserable. "I'm sorry, Henry. I didn't mean it like that."

He smiled; a genuine smile of warmth and understanding. "I know. But this is a perfect example, why being friends with me is not easy. I tend to be woeful and dismal at times."

Jo chuckled listlessly to herself, and in an intentionally lighter tone said, "Well, if you ask me, it will become easier now, because your oddities will make more sense. Your aversion for cell phones, for example. It's now no longer a random quirky dislike, but... Well, you're double the age of the regular phone. It's no surprise you're having problems with them."

"Actually," Henry objected, "I am _not_ twice as old as the telephone. The telephone was patented in 1876. Which, may I remind you, was three years before my hundredth birthday. And as a matter of fact, the first attempts at transmitting human speech through electric wire date back even further, to the early 1840s, at which point, I was just shy over sixty."

"1840, really that early? Wow."

Henry rolled his eyes. "You people of today, you think everything before 1950 is still in the dark ages."

"Now that's not true."

He simply rolled his eyes again. "Be that as it may, the development of the telephone goes back to the mid-19th-century. In Germany a certain Johann Reis, lovely fellow, laid down the ground work. A little later Antonio Meucci, a New Yorker of Italian descent, obviously, created a more sophisticated model... the real thing, you might say."

"I thought it was Alexander Graham Bell."

Henry huffed. "Bell. He was no more than a thief. A clever one, but still a thief. First he stole from Reis, and when he couldn't make it work on his own, he stole the completed work from Meucci. It was actually quite a scandal back in the day. Unfortunately, Meucci died before the matter could be resolved, and Bell was free to go down in history. Not even the word 'telephone' was his own idea, he stole that one from Reis as well!" He had talked himself into a bit of a frenzy.

Jo tried not to laugh too loudly. Lecturing Henry and his "History of Inconsequential Things" were back.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... Are you laughing at me?"

"But in a good way," she assured him, giggly.

"There isn't any good way to laugh at somebody."

She tried to get herself back under control. "But there is. Because this," she pointed at him, "this is _you_."

"Who else would I be?"

For a man of his alleged life experience he had a puzzling inability to understand the simplest things, sometimes. "This is you as I've come to know and like you."

"And that's a good thing." It was more of a question than an agreement or confirmation.

"Yes, Henry. That's a good thing."

* * *

TBC


	13. Data Privacy

_Sorry for the long wait, but I managed to ruin my right arm, shoulder and elbow, and typing's a bit of a bitch. (And I hope I get that time difference right, because I'm the one who really doesn't know how to keep them straight... like at all.)_

 _And also, because I haven't said it in a while: All your attention to this story is wonderful and uplifting and elating! THANK YOU!_

* * *

"What do you mean, _you missed her_?!" Hanson all but shouted into the phone.

Uh-oh. That did not sound good, not at all.

"How can an airport worth of police-force miss a stewardess? – Oh, don't be smart with me, Urbanek. They knew her name, they had her picture, they knew the damn flight she was on!"

Jo carefully stepped away from her desk, over to the coffee pot. Hanson was very much a nice guy. But he did have his moments. And then, you didn't want to be near him. Now was such a moment.

"And what does the airline have to say for - What? That ... ugh!" Hanson banged the receiver down so hard, Jo feared he might have broken the telephone altogether.

"What's gone wrong?" she asked tentatively, and held out a cup of coffee as a peace offering.

He took it after a moment, and that meant the moment was over. They never lasted very long, thankfully. "We don't have Edita."

She'd gathered that much, but... "Why not?"

"Because obviously, she is the queen of rescheduling! She has traded with yet another stewardess and just simply wasn't on the plane."

"And the airline..."

"... says nothing. Data privacy."

"They know she's a murder suspect, though, right?"

"Obviously doesn't make a difference to them. We're lucky they told us she traded flights. But don't think they gave us the name of the one she traded with. I mean, do they actively try to sabotage our case?"

Jo waggled her head indecisively. There was something to be said about data privacy. It surely made it easier for Henry to keep his long life a secret. Although she wondered, how he would fare with that in the future, when so much personal information was collected and stored in so many different places.

"What, don't say you agree with them?"

"No. But they are within their rights. Does that make it harder for us? Of course it does. Would there be a more convenient, yet still legal, way? Yes. But the bottom line is: They are within their rights, and we'll have to work around that. Like we work around a lot of other annoying stuff. We'll get to her sooner or later."

Hanson huffed and took a sip of his coffee. "So, with Edita in the wind, where do we turn to next?"

"We haven't drained our resources yet," Jo stated optimistically. "Let's go to her apartment, she may have returned already and be home. If she's not there, have a stake out in front of her doorstep and pick her up when she returns." The last was wishful thinking, a mantra, maybe. Edita had her passport with her, easy access to a lot of destinations all around the globe. She had opportunities.

"I'll get a court-order to monitor her bank account," Hanson jumped onto her train of thought. "Let's hope she didn't flee to a country with no extradition-treaty."

* * *

Edita Pinero remained unlocatable.

No sign of her at her apartment, no sign she'd come home at an earlier point and left again in a hurry, no sign she'd taken anything to Hong Kong she wouldn't have taken on any other trip. The neighbours hadn't seen her in three days, no activity with her bank account. The warrant for the airline to disclose their information still in the coming.

Another interview with Filipe – released to go back home the previous night – did not bring to light any new information.

Things were going excruciatingly slowly.

One might even argue that they had ground to a complete halt.

Hanson tossed the file, he'd been just holding, onto his desk. "That's it," he said. "I don't know where else to look. I have officially used up all of my solution finding skills. Maybe we should give Henry a call, let him sniff around in Edita's apartment."

Jo dropped her own file. "He's not a miracle worker, you know."

"Could've fooled me."

Jo dismissed it with a slight shake of her head. "Just what is taking so long with the warrant for the airline, anyway?"

"Damn if I know." He looked at his watch. "And if they don't come through within the next half hour, we can forget it for today. Judges go home in half an hour."

Jo groaned, sharing his frustration. This case was...

Hanson's desk phone rang. "Let's hope," he said, before taking the call. "Hanson here." There was a short silence, then a triumphant "Yes!"

Jo grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair before he even put the phone down. This could only mean one thing: They got the warrant. Because some Uniform having found Edita was just too much to hope for.

"We finally got the warrant," Hanson elaborated, grabbing his own jacket. "Now let's hope it actually does something for us."

It didn't. Not really.

Sheila Brown could only tell them that she had been more than happy to trade with Edita. It had given her a few more hours in Hong Kong, a city she loved, and had given Edita the opportunity to attend to her urgent family matters.

"What matters?" Jo inquired.

Sheila shook her head. "She didn't say. Just 'family matters'. I didn't ask, because I didn't want to be insensitive, you know. She looked distressed enough as it was."

"Any idea when she got that call?"

"Not too long before I should have left for the airport, she knocked at my door, asked me to trade, and... that was pretty much all there was to it."

"And that would have been when?"

"She came to me just before 3 pm."

Back out in the car, Jo and Hanson quickly assessed the new situation. "Let's see if we can find out, if anyone called Edita around... How much time difference is there between us and Hong Kong?" Jo looked questioningly at Hanson.

"Do I strut around in a three-piece-suit? Do I speak in a pompous, know-it-all British accent?"

"Henry doesn't strut. And he's British, so what other accent would he speak?"

Hanson gave her a suspicious look. "Is there something I should know?"

"What?"

"Not that I'd judge or anything," he quickly added.

Jo slapped him on the upper arm, and not gently either. "You are so... ugh, you're so..."

He grinned. "Observant?"

 _Disgustingly male_ , she wanted to say, but she knew that that was an argument that just didn't earn you anything but ridicule and even more trouble, when used on a man. So she said nothing. "Just find out how many hours earlier we are in New York. Or are we later? I never could get those time zones straight."

"We are later in relation to Hong Kong, that much I know." He got his phone out, typed for a while and then said: "Okay, according to this site, we have a twelve hour difference. So 3 pm in Hong Kong was... 3 in the morning in New York. That's it, nobody called her. At least not on her phone."

And with that, they were back to where they were an hour ago. None the wiser.

Jo banged her fist against the car door in frustration.

"Let's just call it a day," Hanson said after a moment. "Go home, share dinner with the family for a change. Spend some time with the kids..." In his mind he seemed to be already there.

"Long, hot shower," Jo said, and felt pathetic that a shower was the best evening-plan she could come up with.

The look, Hanson gave her, said the same, before it softened. "You know, you could always come with me, have dinner with us. Karen won't mind. She always cooks too much anway."

For a short moment, Jo was tempted, but then she shook her head. "No, thanks, though." She considered going over to Henry's, but that also lasted for not longer than just a short moment.

* * *

TBC


	14. Contemplating stupid Things

_Quick reminder for everyone who reads: English is not my first language, so I tend to get things wrong every now and then. I suspect there are a few mistakes, especially in this chapter. Plese bear with me._

 _And even though I don't reply to every comment I get individually, be sure that I love every single one of them._

 _ON WITH THE STORY!_ :D

* * *

Henry felt deeply nervous. He had not heard from Jo since she'd stopped by yesterday noon. And while that had gone well – to a degree – it was now almost four in the afternoon the following day, and still not a word from her. And he just didn't know what to make of it. It could be as simple as her being busy with the case. It was, after all, not your run-of-the-mill case; dismemberment of that scale was something exceptional, even in New York City.

Also, they hadn't seen each other every day prior to his big revelation, so why was he getting nervous about it now? Maybe this just only meant that everything was back to normal.

Or maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe she... Maybe... But no, she wouldn't do anything that would drive him away from this job. He loved this job, and she knew it. It gave him a satisfaction that somehow being a physician never had. And Abe, of course. If he had to leave the OCME, he likely would have to leave New York altogether, just to be on the safe side; and he couldn't do that. He couldn't leave without Abe, and Abe was too old to leave New York.

Henry swallowed a bout of rising panic. Still a strange concept that his son was getting too old for things. The one piece of life experience he would never share with anyone.

But no, he reassured himself for about the hundredth time. She would never do that. Not least of all, because if she had anything like that in mind, he would already be packing, not sitting around in his office, brooding over things that were, in all probability, stupid.

Then again, she might have decided to take her distance after all, despite the short visit yesterday. Which would still be not half bad... but neither would it be half good. Being partners with Jo, solving crimes, that had become the main appeal of his job.

"Doc?" Lucas stuck his head through the door.

"Yes, you may leave early," Henry answered offhandedly, his focus still on his uncertainty regarding Jo.

"No, actually, a body just came in."

Henry looked up. "Well, this is a morgue, Lucas, it's been known to happen, no reason to get all excited about it."

"Yeah, but this is one you'll like. Found half burned in an abandoned car in an abandoned lot. Probably didn't die in the fire." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Henry scowled half-heartedly, before he hastily got out from behind his desk. Lucas knew him all too well. Outside in the morgue a black body bag was lying on a gurney.

"Why weren't we called to the site? A half burned body in an abandoned car, those are highly suspicious circumstances. There should have been an ME on site."

"Says here, there was an ME at the scene," Lucas read off the chart that had come with the body. "Oh, now that explains it all. It was Washington."

They shared a mutual, long-suffering glance.

"I don't get, why they don't just finally send him off into retirement," Lucas said. "He's really getting too old for the job, more interested in his own comfort than anything else."

"Oh, age has nothing to do with it," Henry contradicted. Ever since he'd passed his first hundred years, he felt compelled to defend age, whenever it was used as an explanation – or excuse – for something. "Dr Washington is just simply inadequate as a medical examiner."

"You said it, Doc."

"Yes, and now that I've said it, let's see what we have here." Henry reached for the body bag, but before he pulled it open, he looked up with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "And what Dr Washington has overlooked."

The heavy, somewhat sweet smell of burnt flesh mixed with the smell of coal and ash permeated the morgue. Lucas bent away instinctively, Henry only turned his head to the side a bit. He had learned to ignore the smell of burning humans in 1945. The smell had hung in the air surrounding the KZs long after the crematoria had gone cold. It had clung to every fibre, every nook and cranny. Sometimes he thought he could even smell it in people's hair. One had to learn to ignore the smell in order to keep sane.

"Doc? Mysterious, burned Jane Doe?"

Henry snapped back into the present. "Right." He looked at the clock, then back at the body. The state she was in, she would require a lot of work. The autopsy would take at least three hours. That would make him come home late and miss dinner. Abe would be disgruntled if he missed dinner... "Maybe we should leave this until tomorrow."

"Really?" Lucas sounded disappointed.

"Really. Dr Washington obviously has no interest in her - or she wouldn't be here - therefore she will still be here in the morning. Now let's just have an early day off, shall we?"

"Whatever you say, Doc, you're the boss."

"++"

Jo argued with herself whether to call Henry or not. She wanted to, but she had no reason to. And she had never called him without reason; or at the very least something she could use as pretence. But today there simply wasn't anything.

Except for the obvious.

Too bad she had always been having problems with the obvious, and she couldn't just give in to it now, she just couldn't.

"Damn you, Henry," she muttered, sitting behind the steering wheel of her car, staring out across the parking lot, wondering which way to go: home to have another pathetic evening all by her lonesome, or call Henry and maybe get a dinner out of it cooked by Chef Abe.

But since Henry had told her about himself, things had turned a bit more complicated... Did she put pressure on him if she showed up just like that? Or was he waiting for it? Was she conveying rejection by not calling? And why was she even pondering those questions? After yesterday noon she had thought that they were back on track. Apparently not.

God, it was hell.

She had known from the start that being friends with Henry would be difficult, but she had never thought it would be _that_ difficult.

* * *

Henry had no problem asking Abe for advice when it was about something modern, a piece of technology or trivial knowledge. He decidedly hated it when it was about interpersonal things. He had 235 years of life experience, for God's sake, he had had many, _many_ relationships in many, many variations. He should have figured people out by now.

"Oh, come on, again?" Abe all but whined, when at dinner Henry once more pushed his food around the plate instead of eating it.

"I'm sorry," Henry apologised and put his fork down. "But..." He rubbed his forehead. He _hated_ asking Abe for advice.

"What? The case? Another case?" After what might have been a rhetorical pause: "Jo?"

"I haven't really had a chance to talk to her since... since I told her."

"I thought you were working on that case together?"

"We are, such as it is."

Abe raised his eyebrows at that.

"Our contact has... diminished. Yesterday a quick visit for lunch, today nothing. Not one word. What have I done wrong?"

"You haven't invited her for dinner."

"What?"

Abe sighed as he abandoned his own dinner plate. "Dad, how can you be so old and still so clueless?"

"I must be dense, I guess."

"Or too reclusive. This is exactly why I keep telling you to go out there and live your life! If you shut yourself off from people, they will develop and you won't, and sooner or later there will be no common ground anymore, and then what will you do?"

Henry snorted. He didn't know what to do _now_ , he didn't need to wait for any kind of future, near or far.

"It's not too late to invite her over, you know?"

"It would take her an hour to get here, if she hadn't already eaten..."

"You know, that inviting her over for dinner wouldn't be about actual eating, right?"

"Of course not. But I don't want to impose on her. I have dumped an awful lot on her as it is. Maybe she just needs some breathing space, to, you know, work through it all."

"Now, that's a load of bull if I've ever heard one – sorry, Pops."

"I beg your pardon?" Henry sat up indignantly. This was exactly why he hated asking Abe for advice. He always developed allusions of grandeur; never mind that he more often than not was right about what he said.

"I said sorry," Abe wiped it away. "But tell me this: How is she supposed to work through it all – which, by the way is not all, as long as you don't tell her about the East River – when you don't help her? She has no point of reference from which to look at it, no frame within which she could work with it. She needs you to put it into perspective for her. It's easy for me, 'cause I've lived with this shit my whole life. But Jo, she's only had three days."

* * *

TBC


	15. The Vanity of Women

_Dang. So many comments that Henry and Jo need to talk. And I know you're all right. But they're both so damn stubborn and refuse to do it. Well, I hope I managed to put them on the right track finally.  
_

 _Sorry, this a short one. And the solution in the chapter may not be the most imaginative one, but people have done it on TV, so... what's good enough for them is certainly good enough for me. ;)_

* * *

Abe's words ran circles in Henry's mind even the next morning on his way to work. Only when he started the autopsy on the burn victim, he managed to push them aside. The woman was between 25 and 30 years old, and had indeed been dead before somebody had set fire to her body – no ash or soot in the throat, and only flakes of ash in the nose, blown in there by the heat of the fire. On external examination the likely cause of death was a number of traumata to the head. "Indetermined blunt object," he summarised.

"Cops will be thrilled to hear that," Lucas commented dryly to the side, as if he didn't mean for Henry to hear it, although that was clearly the intention.

Henry took the bait. He cleared his throat. "It is not my job to give thrills to the police," he bristled. "It is my job to find medical evidence about people's deaths, and give _that_ to the police."

Lucas looked to the side as if bored, as if regretting to have said anything.

Too bad. With renewed vigour, Henry threw himself into a monologue. "Once the police come up with possible murder weapons, I can do comparisons and, based on those, can make exclusions and maybe even determinations. But until then, these wounds remain caused by an indetermined blunt object. – All that assuming that these traumata are indeed what caused young Jane Doe's demise, and we even need to find the exact nature of said indetermined blunt object."

"Finished?" Lucas asked, making a show of sounding bored and unimpressed.

Unfortunately, Henry was. He would have liked to fill Lucas' ears with some more chatter, but he wouldn't stoop down to spouting utter nonsense just for the sake of unnerving his young friend. He had been sailing close to that border as it was.

"Alrighty then," Lucas said and handed Henry a scalpel. "Let's see inside her."

Henry took the scalpel without a comment and cut the big Y into the blackened chest. Pulling back the skin he was greeted not only with the familiar red of a body's insides, but also with a very welcome commodity of the 20th and 21st century for identification of unknown bodies ... female bodies at the very least.

"Our Jane Doe shall not be a Jane Doe for very much longer," Henry declared triumphantly, as he pulled the implants from the body, handing them over to Lucas. "Check the serial number, please."

Lucas went to wash them clean and mumbled something about having had more breast implants in his hands than actual breasts. But Henry could have misheard that one.

"++"

Jo was not a happy camper. Too many things were going wrong at the moment... or just not right, which was bad enough. The investigation, if it moved any slower, would actually move backwards. Although she wasn't entirely convinced that that wasn't the case anyway, because everything seemed to become more muddled rather than clearer

And then there was this thing with Henry. Still.

Nevertheless, when her mobile rang and she saw that it was Henry, it made her happy, not nervous. "Henry. Tell me you've got a way out of our dead end case."

"End maybe, dead definitely."

She frowned. "Do you mind cutting out the cryptic messages and just say what you've got?"

"Oh, you're no fun anymore," he complained good-humouredly. "Come on down, and I'll show you."

"Henry got something?" Hanson asked hopefully.

"I sure hope he does." A few days ago she would have added something like "if he doesn't I'll kill him for getting our hopes up". But there's no fun in making idle threats like that when the subject of your threat was unkillable.

Down in the morgue Henry greeted them with an outstretched hand in which he held a blob of silicon. "The vanity of women," he declaimed. "I love this century," he went on in a smooth, self-satisfied tone. "Serial numbers wherever you look, even on the tiniest, stupidest things. Including..."

"... breast implants," Hanson completed the thought.

"Exactly."

"And what is _our_ interest in this implant, exactly?" Jo asked, although she already had an idea.

"Meet Edita Pinero," Henry said and flung back the light green sheet from one of the bodies.

Hanson flinched away. "God, I hate the crisps."

Henry shot him a disapproving glance, but didn't comment.

"How did she end up here, and when?" Jo asked.

"Delivered yesterday afternoon." Henry handed her the report which she skimmed through quickly.

"Washington, huh?" It had developed into a bit of a running gag between them to make fun of Washington.

"Lucas suggested retirement," Henry answered with a smile.

"Lucas might be on to something," Jo answered, also smiling.

Henry's smile faded a little. "I hope you're not suggesting he's too old for the job."

Jesus, being around Henry has surely developed into walking a minefield. Possible injuries all around. "No, I'm suggesting that he's too lazy."

His smile grew again. "Abe..." he said after a beat, "he thought... that is I... We..."

Hanson demonstratively made a few paces away from them. Subtle was definitely not his middle name.

Henry cleared his throat. "As I was trying to say, I wanted to invite you to dinner."

Combined with his previous stutterings, Jo translated that into: _Abe told me to invite you._ "Sure?"

"I wouldn't ask if I weren't," he replied smoothly. Always one to recover quickly from trip-ups of any kind. "I know the situation is complicated, and it's a lot for you to take in. Which is why Abe and I have been talking, and come to the conclusion, that..."

"It's alright, Henry, you can stop shovelling your own grave now."

He sighed of relief. "So, you'll come, we talk some more, clear things up?"

Jo wondered for a moment, how much more there could be to clear up, but she nodded. "Sure. Tell Abe I'm happy to come."

"He'll be delighted to hear it."

* * *

TBC

 _God, this editor is unnerving. Keeps kicking my separation-lines out. Hope it holds with the " now._


	16. Author's Notice - Sign of Life

Sorry, just a quick note:

This story is still alive, it's just that the last ten days of June I was away on Holiday, and now it's July and I'm busy with Camp NaNoWriMo with one of my original stories. I will resume in August THE LATEST, but probably sooner when I need a change of literary scenery.

Just bear with me, hang in there, the story will be concluded. I have the case plottet through, know pretty much what will happen between Henry and Jo. I just need the time to write it down.

Thanks for your understanding, everyone. Get a free hug for your patience.


	17. Brothers and Sisters

Phew, BIG - what am I saying - HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who's been patiently waiting for this to continue. I got side-tracked with my original story much more than I thought I would, but now I'm back on track, with one of my favourite parts of this story. Hope you like it too.

* * *

Thanks to Edita's reappearance – albeit as a charred body – the investigation got new wind. Since Felipe was the one telling them about Edita, he now could hardly deny that he knew her.

"But it was over, between them", he insisted, taking refuge behind his desk in the back office.

"Yes, so you told us," said Hanson. "Since when exactly was it over?"

"Three weeks, maybe four? And why are you asking me this, I already told you everything I know."

"Would it surprise you to hear that Edita has been found dead yesterday evening?"

"What?" He sounded surprised, but not much – not enough for Jo's comfort.

"So what were your brother and Edita involved in that got them killed?" she asked.

"I don't know. They were a perfectly normal couple, doing perfectly normal things."

"As far as you know," Hanson said ironically to the side.

"Yes, if you must know," Felipe replied hotly, before he swallowed and all but pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck.

Jo and Hanson exchanged a look. He was too nervous.

"How..." Felipe cleared his throat. "How did..."

"How she died?" Hanson sat down on the edge of the desk. "Oh, someone bashed her head in and then set her on fire."

"She... she wasn't, like Romano..." He looked kind of pale, like he was going to throw up any minute.

"No," Jo quickly answered. "Whoever killed Edita was much kinder than the person that killed your brother. She was definitely dead before she was burned."

"That's good to hear. I mean, that she didn't suffer, I mean. Not that she's dead, that's not good. Obviously."

"Obviously," Jo and Hanson answered like one, before Jo continued alone: "Tell me, Mr Lopez, where were you two nights ago?"

"Are you suggesting that I...?"

"Is that her?" Hanson picked up a framed photograph from the desk and held it out for Jo to see. Felipe – or arguably Romano – stood at a pier, water in the background, and in his arm a beautiful woman who looked seductively at the camera.

"Ah, yes. That's Edita and... and my brother."

"Is it just me", Hanson said offhandedly, "or do you also think it's a bit weird to have a picture of your brother and his girlfriend on your desk at work?"

"He was my brother, it was ..."

"Or is this really you?" Hanson interrupted.

Jo had a hard time not gasping. She was seriously lagging in this investigation, or she wouldn't be so surprised now. Had to be Henry and the weird phase their friendship was going through that kept her so off her game.

"Did you have feelings for your brother's girl?" she asked sympathetically.

"Of course I did, she was going to be my family." Felipe was getting more and more agitated.

"I'm not talking about that kind of feeling," Jo clarified.

"Mr Lopez, were you in love with Edita Pinero?" Hanson asked outright.

"No! What a stupid idea!" But the protest was too loud and too quick.

"I repeat my question from before, Mr Lopez: Where were you two nights ago?"

"I was at home."

"Alone?"

"Yes. I didn't know I was going to need witnesses!"

Fair enough, Jo thought, but by now Felipe was seriously sweating – and it was not hot in the office, not even really warm. "Mr Lopez, I'm not suggesting that you were in love with Edita. But maybe you suspected her of killing Romano? Did you meet up with her and ask her about it? Did she maybe confess to the murder?"

Felipe stared at her wide-eyed, not knowing what to say, really, his mouth working as if he wanted to say something, but he made no sound.

"I think we better continue this at the precinct."

Felipe still stared, but finally closed his mouth. He nodded, turned the computer off, took his jacket and locked the office. "I'm gonna have to close the store. I'll have to tell my boss."

"We'll let him know", Jo promised.

"Will I need a lawyer?"

"Since you're asking, I would assume that's a good idea."

* * *

Henry was unnerved with himself when he ended the day, because he was nervous about Jo coming over. She had been over for dinner many times before, had slept on his couch on occasion. Why would it suddenly be different? He even didn't have to worry anymore about accidentally revealing his secret. Maybe that was it. He was so used to dancing around the truth he had unlearned to not do it.

And of course, he still hadn't told her about the dying-part of his immortality. "Living forever" sounded weird and insane, but apart from that not too bad, because people, when they heard "immortality" they heard "cannot die".

"Does the invitation for dinner still stand?" Jo stood in the door to his office.

"Of course it does." He drew his eyebrows together in mock dismay. "Why wouldn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know. Things have been a little weird between us these past couple of days."

He smiled. Trust Jo to go straight for the carotid. "Yes", he admitted, "yes, I gather they have been, and I am truly sorry about that. I don't even know why."

She shrugged. "Well, our relationship has shifted. To where or what, I'm not sure yet either. But something has definitely changed. But as long as we're honest with each other, I think, we'll get through this. Dinner's a good start. Abe's really smart like that."

Henry's smile grew warm. "His mother taught him well."

"Not his father?"

Henry shook his head minutely. "I did my best, but I have had trouble socialising ever since the fin de siècle. Rules are so different nowadays. I never quite know what people expect. My idea of politeness differs from everyone else's. My priorities differ from everyone else's. And each time I think I've finally figured it out, society changes."

"You need to get out more", she concluded. "Be among people. Socialize." She grinned underhandedly. "I know you don't like that, but it's the only way you'll stay in the loop."

He sighed, gave it an extra dramatic notch. "That's what Abe keeps telling me."

"He's a smart man. One we shouldn't keep waiting."

Henry didn't answer that, but just got up and got his jacket.

"So how's the case going," he asked, once they were in Jo's car and fighting their way through New York evening traffic.

Jo grunted with frustration. "Slow. Still. I really thought, that after finding Edita's body, there would be some movement, you know? I mean, Hanson and I, we're sure that Filipe – if he hadn't killed either of them himself – knows who did. But since he's not talking, like not at all, not even with his lawyer, we're starting to think that he did it himself. Not that that helps us much without proof or confession."

Henry bit his tongue, but silence was just not a virtue he was given. "I don't think he killed his brother, his brother's girlfriend, maybe, but not his brother."

"What, just because they're twins? Don't you think twins can kill each other? Everything's possible. I mean, look at you."

"I didn't kill any of my brothers."

"You know what I mean," she chided him. Then, after a beat, she added: "So, you had siblings? Funny, I never thought of you as a brother."

"No?" he challenged her.

"No, you seem like the archetypical spoilt only child to me."

He smiled. "Well, you're not exactly wrong about that. Technically, I was the fourth of five children, but none of my siblings survived childhood."

"Oh." She sounded outwitted for a moment; sorry. "What happened – if I may ask?"

"Small pox", Henry readily answered. The pain was a very old one, so old that it had faded into almost non-existence by now. "Henrietta was nine when she died, Clara was seven and Michael six. I was three at the time."

"They all died at the same time?" She threw a sympathetic glance at him.

"Within three weeks. Clara was the first, then Michael. Henrietta held out the longest."

"And you? Did you never catch the disease or..."

"No, I caught it. But I survived."

"You don't have any scars, though."

"While scarring from small pox is common enough, it is not inevitable. Besides, I do have a few."

She gave him another sideways glance.

"In places you will never see them, god willing."

She shook her head. "Don't worry, Henry, your personal privacy is safe with me."

"And, before you can ask, no, I don't think that my surviving has anything to do with my later-to-come immortality. I just simply survived. Not everybody automatically dies from the small pox, just like not everybody automatically dies from the plague."

"Still, how can you be sure? Maybe you would have..."

"Jo, if the small pox would have killed me except for my... peculiar nature, I would walk this earth as a very disgruntled three-year-old."

"Right, because you stopped aging when that captain shot you." She nodded to herself. "I knew that."

"I hardly remember them, you know. I remember their tombs and their names on the headstones much more clearly than I remember them."

She drew in a sympathetic breath. "Sorry to hear that."

"Yes, well. It's true what they say: You can't miss what you never knew."

"Well, but you did know them. They were your siblings."

"Yes, but the memories are so faint." All of a sudden he was saddened by that. He hadn't felt sad about his lost brothers and sisters in a very, very long time. "I have drawings. I should look at them again, one of these days."

For a while they drove in silence, then she started fidgeting. Something irked her.

"What?" he asked, hopefully drawing it out of her.

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

"Jo, I do know you rather well by now, well enough so that I can tell when something is vexing you."

"You said you were the fourth out of five. So what happened to the fifth?"

"Joseph. He was born when I was eight, almost nine. He died of what is called today SIDS – sudden infant death syndrome."

She was quiet for a moment, before she said, almost in a whisper: "So much death."

He touched her lightly on the arm. "It was the way it was back then. So, despite being one of five, I pretty much grew up as the spoilt only child you thought I was."

"Sorry about the spoilt."

He laughed. "Actually, looking back, I think that's exactly what I was."

* * *

TBC


	18. A definition of long

The dinner conversation ... sorry, it's probably not all you exected it to be. ;)

* * *

"Ah, Jo." Abe smiled at her happily, as she entered the shop behind Henry. "Wasn't sure you'd come."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Wasn't sure he'd ask," Abe clarified in a whisper.

"I have excellent hearing, Abraham," Henry called over from the bottom of the stairs.

Abe coughed with mock embarrassment. "Sorry, Pops, but I'm only telling it as it is, here. You are a coward sometimes."

"I most certainly am not," Henry protested, walking back a few steps towards them.

Abe shared a conspiratorial grin with her.

"He's really not a coward, more like very careful," Jo tried to defend her friend.

"Thank you, Jo." Henry accompanied the words with a slight bow.

"Which is a fancy way of saying that he's a coward," Abe insisted.

"Should have taught you some manners and respect when I had the chance," Henry grumbled and left.

Abe looked after him for a moment, before he turned back to Jo. The usual humorous, light glint in his eyes was gone. "Don't get me wrong," he said softly. "He's my father, he's the only family that I have, and I love him dearly. But that doesn't make me blind to his misgivings."

Jo looked up at the ceiling. "Well, it's not like he doesn't have a really good reason to be cautious," she said.

"Yeah, well," Abe agreed. "I give you that, but still, sometimes..." He looked up to the ceiling as well. "Sometimes he just overdoes it, especially in the interpersonal department. And then he goes and overcompensates with bouts of megalomania in other areas."

Jo nodded, she knew exactly what he meant. "Like stepping in front of a car speeding towards him, thinking he can stop the driver."

"He did that?" Abe sounded surprised.

"Or stepping between me and the business end of a gun. – Which, of course, I understand now probably doesn't mean much to him, but still." She drew in a surprised breath when she realized that Henry had accepted the possibility of her finding out about him. Had that been a sign of trust, or had it been his natural instinct to preserve life, even at a high cost to himself? He was a medical doctor, after all, has been for over two hundred years.

"I wish he wouldn't do these things."

Jo wondered why, when she realized what she must have deliberately ignoring so far: Even if Henry didn't die from a car running him over, or a bullet hitting him in the chest... "It's painful for him, isn't it? Even if it doesn't kill him, he feels the pain."

Abe scratched his head, uneasily.

Which meant she was right.

"Hey, you two! Stop talking about me already, and come up for dinner!" Henry shouted from upstairs.

"We're not talking about you, you're just being paranoid!" Abe shouted back.

A few moments later Henry reappeared at the foot of the stairs. "I may be many things, Abraham, but I have never been paranoid. Even when you thought I was."

Jo looked at Abe in hopes for an explanation. To her, Henry had never made a paranoid impression, rather the opposite. If anything, he was too trusting.

"Another long story," Henry said.

She wanted to scream out in frustration, but limited herself to a grunt. "Really, back to that again? I thought we were past these evasions."

Henry did a subtle double-take, then nodded. "You're right. But maybe it can wait until after dinner?"

"Why? Will it ruin my appetite?"

"No, but then we could have some Scotch with it," Abe suggested with a grin.

"Oh, no. No," Jo immediately refused. "I am not drinking anything in this house anymore ever again."

Henry smiled broadly.

"I'm serious. I feel like I'm still frying brain cells from last time."

* * *

Dinner was delicious, the conversation quiet and comfortable – a few anecdotes from Henry, and his customary lectures on mundane things; like the spices used in their meal and what virtues people used to accredit to them. Rosemary was believed to repel evil spirits and help with fatigue, onions were used against inflammation, pepper...

"Can I ask you a question on that," Abe interrupted. "Were you using those things when you started out as a physician?"

The question brought Henry to a grinding halt. "Alright, I get it," he said after a moment. "I'm boring you."

"No, not at all," Abe contradicted in a tone that belied his words.

"Oh, good," Henry smiled sweetly. "And to answer your question: Although most of those things are considered horrid and unscientific today, many of them actually have some merit. Onions, for example, really do have anti-inflammatory agents in them."

"So you're saying you did use all those things," Abe challenged.

Henry laughed softly. "Well, I never burned rosemary to chase off a ghost, if that's what you mean."

Abe rolled his eyes. "Anything clever to say about vanilla?" he asked, as he got up to get three cups of vanilla pudding from the fridge. He poured a bit of raspberry syrup on top of every cup.

Jo found the sour syrup to be an interesting contrast to the creamy sweetness of the pudding. "So, long story," she prompted after the first spoons.

Henry sighed. "Do you remember Clark Walker?"

It took a moment until the name triggered a memory. "Yeah sure, your stalker."

Henry nodded. "When he started calling, Abe thought I was overreacting. I wanted to leave New York, hide out and outlive him." He shook his head with a melancholy smile on his face.

"But you didn't." It was a prompt.

Henry continued shaking his head. "No, I didn't." He looked at Abe, reached over and lovingly squeezed his shoulder once. "I would have had to leave Abe behind, and I couldn't do that."

Abe smiled at Henry, a quiet love in his eyes.

"Nevertheless, my instinct was right," Henry continued. "I should have left."

Jo waited for more, but nothing came. "Henry, one of these days, I think we have to talk about the definition of certain words. This was not long."

"That's because he left out all the important bits," Abe said, but left it at that. He clearly felt that it wasn't his due to talk about it, but that Henry had to set the tone and the pace. He only made sure that Henry couldn't back out altogether.

But Henry only pressed his lips together and studied the spoon in his hand. Evidently, for him this was still a touchy subject.

"Henry, if you don't want to tell me, then don't. I mean, I know about that anyway, and I don't want you to feel pressured into anything."

His continued silence roused her suspicion that there was more to the incident than she was aware of. "What," she asked, "what else is there?"

Henry slowly shook his head. "Not now," he said, his gaze involuntarily flickering over to Abe for just a second.

Of course Abe caught it. "Henry, what is there you haven't told me?"

"Nothing, you know all the..." He interrupted himself. "I'm sorry, Abraham, but there are things a father doesn't share with his son, no matter how grown up he may be. This is one of those things."

Abe looked at her, almost accusingly.

"Don't look at her like that", Henry said firmly. "She's my friend, not my kin. There's a difference, and it's not her fault, or anyone else's. It is a simple fact that you'll have to accept and respect."

Abe just sat there for a moment, taking it in, and then saying: "I guess I'll just have to trust you on that."

Henry nodded, relieved. "Thank you."

"Ah, don't mention it," Abe brushed it off. ""Why don't you two go up to the roof and talk there, while I clean up down here?"

"If you don't mind."

"Ha." Abe waved it off. "I'm cleaning up our dinners most of the time anyway."

* * *

TBC


	19. Pain is Transient

_Dear Readers, be warned. I have NO idea why this turned out to be so terribly dark, but there it is, it won't be lightened up. Every time I try to make it lighter, it just only gets even darker. So let's accept the fact that there is a really dark side to our dear Henry, at least when I write him. I hope you'll like it anyway. It should contain everything you expected from the dinner conversation ... and more._

* * *

"So?" Jo leaned against the parapet of the roof terrace. "What is so terrible about the Clark Walker-story that you won't tell it in front of Abe?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, really."

"Then why..."

"It's complicated."

There it was again, his favourite word. "Henry..."

"Clark Walker wasn't the man on the phone."

"What?" Ten seconds into the conversation, and he'd already lost her.

"He was not my stalker."

"But I thought..."

"I know, everybody does, and it's probably better that way – simpler for sure. Even I thought it was Walker, until I actually, truly killed him." He turned away for a second.

"You're not making any sense."

"My stalker, he is like me; an immortal. At first I didn't believe it, because what are the chances? I was sure he was a regular man who had found out about me, somehow. There are always those who figure it out, one way or another. Sometimes they catch up with me, most times I manage to escape in time."

Escape... What had happened the few times they – whoever they were – had caught up with him? What had they done?

"I was even convinced that he was responsible for the train crash that initially brought us together. I thought it was his flamboyant way of proving his theory."

"But it was that other man – what was his name? He lost his wife. And he died, jumping off the roof."

"Yes, it was that man. But he didn't jump." He licked his lips, nervously. "I ran him off."

"What?" She straightened up a bit, trying to reign in the incredulity. She never had thought him capable.

Henry looked guilt ridden, even as he started to explain... or excuse: "He was about to kill hundreds of innocent people, I was shot..."

"So I did not make that up," she interrupted. The thought had never sat well with her, even considering her own wound and fading consciousness. It was a relief to learn that she had not been fantasising that day.

"No, you didn't make it up. That's why my options were so limited. I had to stop a man that simply wouldn't be stopped. It was a desperate move, and I'm not proud of it, but I comfort myself with the thought, that dying was one of the better options for him. One can survive the loss of a loved one, but he... I don't know that he would have made it. I tell myself that, and most days I believe it, too."

"It hurts you, doesn't it? Getting shot, or getting hit by a car?"

He nodded. "I feel what everybody else would feel, the same pain; I am like everybody else, my life is just like yours, except for one small difference, it never ends." He swallowed. "The pain is real, it's just the dying part that's not."

"Yet you were prepared to let a ponzy-scheme tycoon run you over with his car, you were prepared to take a bullet for me."

He shrugged. "It's only pain, pain is transient. If there's one thing I've learned in my life so far, it's that the fear of pain is indeed worse than the pain itself. I still try to avoid it when possible, but I stopped fearing it."

A shiver ran down her spine.

He walked to stand right next to her, looking out over the city. "I also comfort myself with the fact that I went off the roof with him. He didn't die alone."

"That would explain the unusual situation on the ground. I've read the file. The roof of the cab had a human-sized dent, when the body was actually lying on the pavement next to the cab."

He uneasily craned his neck. "Yes, that dent would have been caused by my body."

She winced, imagining the pain he must have felt.

He looked at her, interpreting her expression correctly, and went on with a becalming smile. "I broke my neck in that fall, didn't feel a thing. Definitely one of my more pleasurable deaths."

"God, Henry, stop talking like that. It gives me goose bumps – and not in the good way."

"You'll get used to it. I die. I die a lot, as a matter of fact ... I just don't stay dead."

She shook her head in confusion. "Wait, wait, wait. I finally accept that you're immortal, now you tell me you die? I don't get it."

He took her by the shoulders, held her at a close distance and looked at her with eyes big and asking for understanding and patience. "Immortality may indeed be an inaccurate term for what I suffer from, because I do die. I died when I fell off that roof. I would have died from the bullet, he put into my chest, so it seemed prudent at the time to take him with me."

"But you didn't really die, I mean, here you are."

"Yes, I am here. But that doesn't mean I don't really die."

She winced, she didn't want to hear this.

"Jo, I don't enjoy telling you this, but in order to understand it, you have to hear it."

She pulled away from his hands and wrapped her arms around herself. He was probably right, but that didn't make it any easier.

"Every time I die, I come back in water, and..." He dropped his gaze, an embarrassed half-smile tagging at his lips. "And I'm always naked. - Lends itself to slightly awkward situations."

"Water?"

"When I die in New York, it's the East River."

"The skinny dipping?" But hang on, he'd been written up for indecent behaviour, had been sent to see a shrink because it had happened once too often. Just how often...?

He nodded.

"You died... That day, when we got that taxi-case. The whole precinct was making jokes, and you went along with it as if nothing had happened! When in reality you died, only hours earlier. – How... or is it inappropriate if I ask?"

A flicker of pain flashed across his face, then it was gone. Even, calm features.

"It's not inappropriate, but it's pointless. It is a question you need to stop asking, because the answer holds no information of value."

She was not sure she shared that opinion, but that debate could wait until some other day.

"As I was saying, I die a lot. I presume incautiousness is the natural consequence of the inability to remain dead. So I die, and then I come back. What killed me at any particular time doesn't make a difference, because I always come back unchanged; no scars, no sicknesses, no ageing. Only memories."

"Henry, stop talking like that, it's totally creepy."

"I guess that's something else you'll have to get used to."

"I don't want to get used to it!" She shouted. How could he be so calm and composed? "So cut it out, and... and don't die, okay? No heroics, no carelessness, no fooling around."

"Promised. I'm not hero-material anyway, I'll try and be more careful with my life in the future, and I stopped fooling around a hundred years ago."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't want to hear this, do I?"

"I ate a death cap once. I was intrigued by the recounts of its good taste. At a hundred and twenty I had a... let's call it a morbid phase. So I cooked myself a dish full of death caps, and I can testify that amanita tastes exceptionally good: spicy with a strong hint of nuts... very delicious. Almost worth the liver failure it causes."

"Seriously, I told you to cut it out!"

He raised his eyebrows in a quiet apology.

For a long moment after that they both remained silent. She looked around the terrace until her eyes caught on the door leading downstairs, into the house. "Is that what you keep secret from Abe?"

He frowned. "Keep what secret?"

"This morbidity of yours, the dying. He just thinks you live on forever, right?"

He chuckled. "No. Who do you think I call when I need a pick-up? Of course he knows, he's been my son for seventy years. Me dying and disappearing is something you simply can't miss in seventy years."

"Then what's so bad about all of this that you couldn't talk about it in front of him?"

Henry sighed. "The whole Adam-situation. There are things he knows, but there are also things he doesn't know – and will never know if I can help it."

"Adam, that's the real name of your stalker?" she asked to make sure.

"No, but it's how he introduced himself to me." Henry swallowed, avoided her gaze. "He killed Abigail."

She gasped. That she had not expected. "But... but she killed herself," she said gingerly.

"Technically, yes, she did it herself. But in reality, it was him. He asked her about me, and she protected me the only way she knew how: First by driving off the road, and when that wasn't enough, by cutting her own throat. All to keep him away from me."

She bit her lip, didn't know what to say.

"Because my brilliant Abigail, she saw right through him. She knew immediately what kind of a man he was."

She had never seen him so tired.

"A two-thousand-year-old, heartless bastard, with no respect for life, and no conscience to speak of. I don't know, maybe that's what becomes of a man after two thousand years of seeing the world change around him until it bears no resemblance anymore to what he once knew, and two millennia of watching everyone around him die and be forgotten by history. I'll probably find out in another eighteen hundred years."

For a moment she let his bitterness sink in. Then she stepped up to him, pulled him into a tight hug. "You will never be heartless, Henry," she promised him softly. "You will never lose your conscience, and you will never lose your respect for life, any life. Not ever."

* * *

TBC


	20. No more Lies

_I hope you're not disappointed with how I resolved the case..._

* * *

The next morning Jo resumed her interview with Filipe Lopez. The darkness of last night's conversation with Henry still weighed heavily on her, but she couldn't let that pull her down, she still had a job to do.

"Listen, Mr Lopez," she said in her most understanding tone, "being quiet is not going to help you."

Filipe looked at her for a second, then looked down again at the table top in front of him.

"You understand that at the moment you are our main suspect in the murders of both your brother and his girlfriend."

It had no noticeable effect on him.

Jo sighed. She was reaching the end of her patience – and her whit. "Mr Lopez?"

Still nothing. Even his lawyer started to look exasperated now.

The door opened and Henry stepped in. He quite likely had been watching from the observation room on the other side of the mirror. At this point, Jo didn't care.

"Good morning, Mr Lopez," Henry said amiably.

Filipe looked up for a moment, registering the new arrival.

"This is Doctor Henry Morgan," Jo introduced him. "Mr Yankovich, Filipe Lopez's lawyer."

Henry absentmindedly nodded at Yankovich. His concentration was fully on Filipe, as he bowed down, propping himself up on his knees to bring his eyes level with Filipe's. "Mr Lopez, Filipe," he said gently. "I know you didn't kill your brother. Nobody in their right mind could do it, not like that. And even though at the moment you are doing your very best to appear like you're out of your mind, I know you're not."

Filipe's gaze went to Henry again, as if his eyes were moved by some external force.

"I know you loved Romano. Did you call him that? Romano? Or did you have a nickname for him?"

Tears came to Filipe's eyes, spilled over. A moment later he was racked by quiet sobs.

"So why don't you just tell me what happened? Ensure justice for your brother. He was the younger one of you two, wasn't he?"

"I loved him," Filipe stuttered. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

Jo's eyebrows shot up in shock. No... This couldn't be! She had been so sure that Filipe hadn't done it. She found her disbelief mirrored in Henry's eyes.

"Mr Lopez," Yankovich said urgently, "don't answer any more questions."

"But we promised," Filipe went on, undeterred, "and he broke the promise, and I pushed him, and he hit his head, and I thought ... I didn't mean to hurt him. I thought he was dead!" Filipe flopped forward onto the table, crying loudly into his folded arms.

For a little while Jo just let it happen, and with a bout of jealousy studied Henry, who still stood next to her, propped up on his knees, his eyes unwaveringly trained on Filipe. Why did people automatically trust him? She had tried to go the way Henry had just walked, so had Hanson, but to no avail. Filipe had sat there, keeping his silence. Now Henry did it, and Filipe sputtered like a broken faucet. It was not fair.

"Mr Lopez?" Henry finally asked and crouched down next to Filipe, crossing his arms on the table, mimicking him to a point.

Filipe looked up.

"What made you think you killed Romano?"

"He wasn't moving, and I couldn't wake him up. And there was so much blood coming from his head."

"So what did you do?"

"Don't answer that."

Again, Filipe ignored his lawyer. "I called Edita."

"Mr Lopez, I strongly advise you to stop talking now."

"She said she'd take care of it." New tears came, and new sobs. "I was so thankful that she was there, and that she didn't blame me or anything, that she didn't call the cops on me. I don't know, I was totally out of it." His nose started to run, he wiped it with his bare hands, getting snot all over his face. "I didn't know she'd push him... God, how could she? She claimed she loved him! How could anybody do such a thing to someone they say they love? That's not..." More sobs interrupted him.

"You didn't know what she did until we told you?" Jo asked. She liked Henry and begrudgingly accepted his talent, even in the interrogation room. But she was not going to let him take over completely. She was still the detective here.

He shook his head. "I called her, after you showed up at the shop. And she told me ... told me that she was trying to make him disappear. And then you tell me I hadn't killed him, that he wasn't really dead. I did not kill him, I didn't kill Mano." The tears he cried now were tears of relief.

"But you killed her, Edita," Jo asked for clarification.

"Don't answer that," Yankovich immediately advised.

Filipe looked at him, then over to Henry, as if asking if it was okay to answer. – Damn him and his trust-evoking personality.

"She was mine," he said softly. "And then, last month he told me about this fabulous woman he'd met, and showed me a picture, and it was her. I told him, she was mine, I'd met her first, but he wouldn't give her up." He rubbed his face with one hand. "I gave him a chance to let her go, and gave him another one. We had a deal, if ever we should like the same girl, we'd both take a pass, and move on. I told her it was over. He didn't. He kept seeing her."

Jo knew the rest of the story before Filipe told it, with many sobs and tears and stuttered words: Filipe had called Romano out on it, Romano had persisted on the continuance of his relationship with Edita, Filipe had pushed him. And in his emotional state – feeling betrayed by his brother and feeling desperate over the assumed murder – he had called the only other person privy to the situation.

"What about Edita?" Jo asked.

"Don't answer that."

But Filipe still wasn't listening to him. "I killed her," he said in a cold voice. "She deserved to die. When I confronted her about Mano, she had the audacity to say that now we could be together again, I didn't have to honour the agreement anymore, because.. She didn't care for either of us. She deserved to die."

Yankovich shook his head in silent defeat. Filipe was every lawyer's nightmare.

Jo stood up. "I'll have your statement written up. I'll be back in half an hour to have you sign it."

Filipe nodded absentmindedly, Yankovich sent her a reproachful glare. Henry followed her outside.

"Damn," she said, once the door closed behind her.

"The tragedy of people jumping to conclusions," Henry said sombrely.

Jo sighed. "On some days this job sucks more than on others."

* * *

Henry finished writing up his notes of the day, when he saw Jo coming across the morgue towards his office.

"Join me and Hanson for a drink?" She stuck her head inside the door.

"Celebrate the closure of the Lopez-case?" he asked, already snapping the folder shut and getting his coat and scarf.

"Celebrate is not the first word that comes to my mind, but... yeah, kinda."

"Can I come too?" Lucas called over Jo's shoulder, looking hopeful like a six-year-old in a candy shop.

"Sure, why not," Henry allowed.

Jo rolled her eyes once, but otherwise accepted Henry's decision.

"Just only one drink, though," Henry continued.

"That's okay. I doubt that Hanson and me will have much more than that."

"Whatever's cool with you guys is cool with me," Lucas assured.

They ended up staying at the bar until it closed at three in the morning. They had stuck to lighter drinks throughout the night, beer and even alcohol-free drinks, but after eight hours, they were drunk, nonetheless.

"Come and stay at my place?" he asked Jo, after Hanson and Lucas had climbed into a taxi they shared.

She didn't even consider it. "I love your couch, Henry, but I think I'm better off in my own bed."

"Presumably," he quickly admitted. He didn't want her to feel obligated. He hailed a cab for her, but when it halted next to them he didn't want to let her get in, because...

"Something wrong?"

"No, why would anything be wrong?"

She raised her arm, and he saw that he had at some point grabbed her coat, holding it in a tight fist.

"New found phobia of taxicabs," he answered. It was worse when he was drunk.

"Really, I never noticed. Since when?"

"Since I died in one." She'd demanded he'd not to talk about his deaths, but she also always wanted the truth, so...

She blinked a couple of times. "I could have done without knowing that, but I guess I appreciate your honesty."

He nodded. "No more lies."

"No more lies," she agreed. "But that doesn't mean unfiltered truth, okay, Henry?"

"I'll try. But this is why I gave up alcohol for a few decades. It makes me chatty."

She laughed softly. "Even more than usual?"

"A lot of things make me chatty," he admitted good-humouredly.

"Right, now that we've cleared that one up, let go of my coat, the man's waiting." She pointed at the cabbie.

But Henry couldn't. His fingers simply did not follow his command. "It's easier to reason myself out of the fear when I'm sober." Why was he telling her that? No unfiltered truth, she'd asked that of him not a minute ago, and already he went against her wish.

"Okay then. How about we walk instead? It's not that far, the fresh air might do us some good. And then I can take a cab from your place."

You can try, he thought, but said: "Thank you." He waved the cabbie away with an apologetic smile.

They walked in silence. Jo linked her arm with his, and it made walking a lot easier, because that way they could conveniently steady each other. It was also warmer. The nights were still rather chilly this time of the year.

"Will I ever know the full truth about you?" she asked when they were almost at his house.

"Yes. You will know everything about me, everything that's of importance, and probably a great number of things that are not of importance." There was no doubt about that in his mind - barring the unlikely possibility of her dying within the next couple of days.

"I like the straightforwardness in your tone," she said. "I've grown sick and tired of you hiding things from me."

"So now you want the truth?" he teased.

"I always want the truth," she declared testily. "I just wish you wouldn't put it quite so bluntly. Think before you speak next time."

"I'll try and be more sensitive in future," he promised. "Any plans tomorrow?"

She stopped, and because their arms were linked, he was forced to stop as well.

"It's one last thing," he told her softly. "One last thing, and then everything else will be colouring out the contours. No more big surprises, no more big revelations. Promise."

She said nothing, just looked at him, her expression hidden by the shadows of the night.

"Say something?" he pleaded.

She shook her head. "Just wondering what this 'one thing' might be. I mean, I know I just asked, but... How much weirder can it get? You already told me you're over two hundred years old. You told me you die on what seems to be a weekly basis or so, and after dying teleport over to the East River. And the weirdest part about all of this is: I actually believe you. That's why I have to wonder: What can there still be that will top that?"

"Why would it have to top anything?"

"Because if it didn't, you would have told me before you told me about the immortality."

She had a point. "Right."

"So why not just tell me now and get it over with? Why wait until tomorrow?"

"Because you asked me to think before I speak. So I thought and realised it'll be better explained if you just see it."

* * *

 _TBC_


	21. You, Henry Morgan, are a Good Man

_Wow ... I am SO flashed by the success of this story. I still don't quite know what to think of it, it's been a blast. Thank you everyone for the support, for the hints sometimes (I took a pointer or two about which aspects to explore more deeply), and for just liking my story. I hope you had as much of a good time reading it as I had writing it. - I can hear you think right now: "That sound's like it's over!" And you're right, it's over. It all happened a lot faster suddenly than I expected. So, sorry that there hasn't been a forewarning. But I hope you'll like this last chapter. I sure do._

* * *

Jo had made it home by a little after four. She had called a taxi to Henry's place, and he had let her go that second time, even though he had still seemed anxious.

Now it was ten the next morning, she was supposed to be at work, but instead drove over to Henry's place. If there was a murder somewhere that needed her attention... well, they had her number.

She parked and walked the rest of the way to the shop. She was a little light-sensitive again, but it wasn't so bad that she wanted to whip out her sun glasses on a cloudy day. A little squinting would do.

Henry was waiting for her in the shop, and of course, he looked spick and span and well rested. It was infuriating.

"How do you do that?" she asked. "Is that another side-effect of your condition?"

"No, it's simply smart dressing. It's remarkably hard to look scruffy in a three-piece-suit."

"Even when it's crumpled?"

He quickly looked down at himself. "Only cheap suits crumple up."

She sighed. "I give up. So what is it you wanted to show me?"

"Another forty minutes."

She hid a yawn and decided to play along. There were times when it made sense to put some pressure on him, and then there were times when pressure didn't get you anywhere. Besides, she could use another half hour or so to fully wake up, the drive over had been more tiring that she had thought. She might as well let him have his little game of mystery.

She was surprised, when he called a cab for them. "I have my car parked down the block."

"I'm sober now," he explained, all rational and reasonable.

"Maybe so, but it's still, I mean if you don't like taxis..."

"I can't avoid taxis for the rest of my life, just because of one incident. If I let all my deaths dictate my life like that, I'd sit in a dark corner somewhere not doing anything at all anymore."

 _All of his_... Just how many...? "But still, you don't have to do it all at once."

"I gave in to my irrational fear yesterday night, time to regain control."

"That one was a bad one, huh?" She didn't really want to know, but maybe Henry had had it right all along. The filtered truth didn't work well, because it left too many questions unanswered, which inescapably lead to assumptions. And what assumptions could lead to had just been demonstrated by Filipe Lopez.

He looked away for a second. "Yes. It was rather recent, just before Christmas." He left it there, as if waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

Taxi... Christmas... Henry's pocket watch in the back of the cab they had pulled from the Hudson. The marks of somebody desperately trying to get out when nobody could have made them, because the back of the cab had been very locked, but also very empty. "Oh my God, Henry." She could only whisper.

"I hate drowning."

"What..."

"I don't think we should get into this now."

"I disagree. I know what I said, about you being blunt and all that, but I don't think this works if I don't know everything. Maybe not down to the last detail, but this is definitely not enough."

He cleared his throat. "Maybe just this once," he gave in. "It was Adam. He killed Raj Patel, for no other reason but to take his place when I needed a taxi."

She winced. Henry probably felt responsible for Patel's death, he was egocentric that way.

"He drove to the river, and shot himself in the head. Just to prove that he was indeed immortal. He disappeared, the taxi kept running, I ended up drowning."

Jo had to swallow the lump that had grown in her throat before she could say something. "That's it, I'm driving."

"No," he declined hastily, then added, more calmly: "Thank you, I appreciate the sentiment, but no. I have to get this under control."

She did not like it. She increasingly got the feeling that Henry was keeping more things under control than could be healthy. "If you insist."

"I do."

Jo hoped that her presence would help him overcome that fear, at least for today. But when the taxi arrived and they got in, she saw him carefully check the driver's face against his license, before he named the address.

About half an hour later they stopped in front of an unassuming, modern, five-storey building that gave no indication of its purpose. Even the name, Paulsen Center, could have stood for just about anything.

"Alright, you've had your fun, now just spit it out," she demanded when they stood on the pavement in front of the entrance and their taxi was gone.

He didn't look at her, but up the façade of the building. "I need you to see Adam."

Her breath hitched. "What?" Why would he bring her to see an immortal psychopath?

He rubbed his neck, scratched his eyebrow. "Whether I like it or not, he is a part of my life, and going by past evidence, he will be for a very long time, surely for as long as you live."

That might be true, but she still didn't see how that was a reason for her to meet the man.

He walked inside, Jo hurrying after him. A receptionist greeted them with a polite smile. "Good morning, how can I help you?"

"I'm here to see Lewis Farber."

Jo frowned. Farber? What?

"Are you a relative?"

"Henry?"

He ignored her.

"Henry, I thought..."

"I'll explain in a second," he promised. "I'm not a relative, but I should be on your list, I'm his doctor, Henry Morgan."

The receptionist typed Henry's name into her computer, then nodded. "You can go right up. He's in room..."

"Room 118, I know. Thank you." He gave the young woman a noncommittal smile. "Come on, Jo."

"Farber? What's that about?" Jo asked. "I know he's left Bellevue, but... And since when are you Farber's doctor? He's yours!"

"Not anymore." He gave her a quick look over the shoulder, never slowing down. Room 118 was just a few feet from the stairs. Henry went in without knocking.

"Henry!" She followed him inside and stopped short the moment she saw the interior of the room. It was, for all intents and purposes, a hospital room.

"Jo, meet Adam." Henry stood next to the bed, in which lay a frail looking man, a tube sticking from his mouth, a breathing machine on the side of the bed busily pumping away.

She stepped a bit further into the room, looked around, taking in the surroundings. A thousand questions buzzed around in her head, but she couldn't get a hold of any of them long enough to actually ask.

"Jo?" He strived to remain calm, but she heard the impatience in his voice.

She looked over to the bed. The man on the bed didn't move, but he did look familiar somehow.

"Meet Adam," Henry said once more. "Or, as you know him, Doctor Lewis Farber."

"What?" She rushed over to the bed in three quick strides. True enough, now that he'd said it, she saw it. The quaint English therapist that had been so helpful when they were trying to find Henry's stalker...

"A shame, really," Henry went on in a voice full of sadness and regret.

"Shame? Henry, if this is Adam, and if everything you told me about him is true, then..."

"Such a brilliant mind," Henry went on, ignoring her interruption. "Such a brilliant mind, so much knowledge, so much experience. All locked away inside an unmoving body."

"What... What do you mean?"

"Locked-in-syndrome," he answered. "Not much of his body works anymore. But he is awake in there, awake and alert. He knows I'm here." He bent down to Farber – Adam? – and into his line of vision. "You know I'm here, don't you, and that I'm not going anywhere."

Farber's face was expressionless, except for his eyes. They were deep brown, almost black, and full of damnation.

For a long moment the two men were lost in a conversation that was held entirely with looks. Farber obviously couldn't say anything, and Henry chose not to. But they seemed to understand each other perfectly, even without words.

"I am not a vindictive person by nature," Henry finally said, and she wondered, who he spoke to, her or Farber. "I don't have a need for revenge, not even for the more painful events in my life. But this, this was different. Abigail was my life, there has been none like her before, and there will never be another like her. And you cut my time with her short when it was already woefully limited."

Farber blinked once. His eyes seemed to have grown even darker.

"I had to take the chance. There was the possibility that you were right, and that I was going to die. I had to take the chance."

Farber blinked again.

"I couldn't let you walk around New York, risking you bothering my loved ones, or just anyone for that matter. You are too dangerous to be left unguarded. I could have screwed it up. You might have died from the air-bubble, or it might have not affected you at all. – Of course, between you and me, with us that's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?"

Farber's eyes grew a little darker still. And the expression changed. Was there ... delight? Happiness? What?

"I had to take the chance," Henry reiterated. "And don't you dare be proud of me for what I did. It was necessary, but it's still hideous, and although I would do it all over again to protect Abraham and Jo, and everyone else in my life from your sick little mind games... I detest myself for it."

Farber blinked.

Henry wiped his eyes.

Jo realised he was crying. She did not know what to do, what to think. She did not fully understand what Henry had done, but somehow he had put Farber – Adam – into this hospital bed.

"Let's go." Henry took her by the arm and pulled her out of the room.

They walked down in silence, left the building in silence – not counting the quick good-bye to the receptionist. They waited for a taxi to stop for them in silence, and rode back to Henry's house in silence.

It was oppressing like few things in her life had ever been.

Finally, when Henry had paid the fare and they stood on the pavement in front of the antiques shop, he returned her look. "I don't know what to say in my defence," he admitted, "or if there even is a defence. This is the worst I ever got, doing that to Adam. But he is dangerous. So far removed from humanity that I can't trust him to not hurt anyone else."

"I understand, I think." Self defence in the name of the human race. Or something like that. Like killing Hitler before he could start World War II – if presumably not quite on the same scale.

He smiled tiredly. "I'm not sure you do, but thank you for the sentiment."

She put her hand on his upper arm, hopefully conveying the comfort she felt he needed. "You know, since you told me that whacky story about your long and complicated life," she registered a small smile on his lips, "there's really been only one thing I've been absolutely sure of."

"Yes? And what's that?"

"That you, Henry Morgan, are a good man."

THE END

* * *

 _Hehe, had you fooled, hadn't I? Y'all thought Henry would demonstrate his condition. But no, I had other plans, right from the start. I **knew** that Henry would show her who Adam really was._

 _And I'll be back, the moment the muse bites me in the butt. **Forever** **is too good to just let wither away.**_

 _Good-bye and thank you for the fish.  
_


End file.
